When new University of Michigan president C.C. Little arrived in Ann Arbor in 1925, American universities were in the midst of a great transition, revamping their admission systems to limit the number of Jewish students on their campuses. At this Making Michigan lecture, Professor Karla Goldman discussed the status of Jewish students at Michigan during this period and how President Little, well known as a eugenicist, actually resisted some of the racist and antisemitic assumptions of his time. His tenure illustrates the long and complicated history of inclusion and exclusion at U-M and in American higher education.
Karla Goldman is the Sol Drachler Professor of Social Work and Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan where she also directs the Jewish Communal Leadership Program. Her research focuses on the history of American Jewish experience with special attention to history of varied Jewish communities and the evolving roles and identities of American Jewish women. She previously taught at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and served as historian in residence at the Jewish Women’s Archive in Boston. She is the author of Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism (Harvard University Press, 2000).
Professor Karla Goldman, co-principal investigator of the IHP’s project site Outsiders, Insiders, Radicals, and Reformers: A History of Jews at the University of Michigan, participated in this lecture series from the Bentley Historical Library. Learn more about Outsiders, Insiders, Radicals, and Reformers.