The Jewish Problem: Anti-Semitic Admissions Quotas in Southern U.S. Medical Schools, 1920s-1960s

Anti-Semitism and worldwide Jewish immigration quotas informed the implementation of Jewish quotas in medical schools around the country from the 1920s to the 1960s. While many are aware of immigration quotas and the anti-Semitism that ran rampant in the country, the same cannot be said for informal medical quotas that restricted Jewish students from admission into medical schools and Jewish doctors from employment. Some of the most well-known schools in the South, such as Georgetown University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Emory University, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, and Wake Forest College, implemented quotas discriminating against Jewish enrollment in each institution’s medical schools.