Bruce Wright’s Exclusion from Princeton University

Maintaining Racial Segregation

In an effort to make white southern students comfortable on a northern campus, Princeton administrators excluded African American undergraduates well into the mid-20th century. One dramatic example of this occurred in 1935 when a black student—whose race was presumed to be white until he arrived on campus—had his offer of admission revoked.

Back to top

Bruce Wright, who had spent some of his childhood living in the university’s shadow, applied to Princeton in the 1930s.  Wright was accepted and awarded a scholarship, and he arrived in the fall excited to join the freshman class.  So far as Dean of Admission Radcliffe Heermance was concerned, however, there was a problem: Wright was black, something the Office of Admissions hadn’t know when they offered him a place among a class of Princetonians without any other black students. Though many students stood in line with Wright to register for classes at the start of the academic year, Heermance refused to admit him. In a later interview, Wright recalled what Heermance had told him:

If you’re trying to come here, you’re going someplace where you’re not wanted.[1]

With no other recourse he could see, Wright went outside, sat down on his suitcase, and waited for his father to drive down from New York to pick him up.[2]

The words lingered in Wright’s mind. “I was shattered, and I became more so as time went on,” Wright said. “For some reason I persisted in writing to Heermance to demand to know why. Was I a danger, a menace to a great university?”[3]

Heermance answered Wright in a 1939 letter. He began by asserting that “Princeton University does not discriminate against any race, color, or creed,” nor ever had in its long history. Heermance then claimed to hold no personal prejudice against him, stating: “I speak as one who has always been particularly interested in the colored race, because I have had very pleasant relations with your race, both in civilian life and in the army.” Yet Heermance also admonished Wright that he would have been unhappy at Princeton because there were no black students there (something within Heermance’s direct control as Dean of Admission) and because of the racial prejudices of Princeton’s student body:

This has been a tradition of long standing in Princeton, and as you know, there is still a feeling in the south quite different from that existing in New England.[4]

Back to top

Wright jotted his frustrations with Heermance’s reply in the margins of this letter: “Damn the pleasant relationships[;] want to go to college.”[5] He ultimately earned a B.A. from Lincoln University in 1942, after the University of Notre Dame also turned Wright away on account of race. Wright then attended New York Law School and went on to a twenty-five year career as a judge in New York, including a term on the New York Supreme Court from 1982 to 1994.[6]  

Back to top

Black Students at Princeton

Princeton University’s Class of 2001 named Wright an honorary member at their Class Day on June 4, 2001.[7] Even at the time of Wright’s admission to Princeton, not all alumni had agreed with Heermance’s decision to revoke his offer. Pressure to admit African American undergraduates to Princeton began appearing in the pages of the Princeton Alumni Weekly in the mid-1930s, around the time Heermance sent Wright away.[8] These pressures intensified during World War II, when the Navy sent four African American students to Princeton in 1945 to attend a V-12 program on campus.[9] In 1947, John Howard became Princeton’s first black undergraduate alumnus.[10] Robert Joseph Rivers, named the first black member of the Board of Trustees in 1969, graduated with the class of 1953.

Thanks to student activism, outside pressures, and changes to state law, Heermance was forced to reverse his position in 1948 and open Princeton to black applicants. African Americans students trickled in very slowly, however.  In 1963 Princeton had only ten black students enrolled.[11] In 2016, Princeton reported an enrollment of 401 African American undergraduates, about 7.7% of the total undergraduate population.[12]

Back to top