Unwelcome Guests: A History of Access to American Higher Education

Harold S. Wechsler · Steven J. Diner

Feb 2022 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Christopher Douyard

Audiobook

7 hr 41 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

In Unwelcome Guests, Harold S. Wechsler and Steven J. Diner argue that discrimination in college admissions has a long and troubling history in the US. Institutions of higher learning have vigorously sought to shape their mission and the experiences of their undergraduate students by paying careful attention to race and religion in admissions decisions. Wechsler and Diner explore how American colleges and universities sought to restrict enrollment of students they considered undesirable. How, they ask, did these practices change over time? And how did underrepresented students cope with this discrimination-and with the indifference, bare tolerance, or outright hostility of some of their professors and peers? Tracing the efforts of people from underrepresented racial, ethnic, and religious groups to attend mainstream colleges, Wechsler and Diner also look at how these students fared after graduation, paying particular attention to Black women and men. Unwelcome Guests illuminates a critically important aspect of the history of American colleges and universities but also addresses policy debates about affirmative action and racial/ethnic diversity in colleges today. This profound history of the limits on college access over decades of discrimination helps listeners recognize and understand the role of race in the history of American higher education.

About the author

Harold S. Wechsler is professor of Jewish education and educational history at New York University and codirects the PhD program. His books include Jewish Learning in American Universities and Access to Success in the Urban High School.

Steven J. Diner headed Rutgers University-Newark as Chancellor from July 2002 to December 2011. Prior to serving as chancellor, Dr. Diner served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers-Newark from 1998-2011. He is also a professor of history.

Christopher Douyard took the backroads to audiobook narration, though he is no stranger to performing. Christopher has nourished a passion for books and storytelling since his youth, when he would devour Tolkien and the Encyclopedia Britannica with equal abandon. He records from his studio in central Connecticut.

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