Another quote: "An interesting remark on the subject was made by Israel Gelfand in late 1980-ies, during his pre-seminar schmoozing. He said that, while the dis

Another quote: "An interesting remark on the subject was made by Israel Gelfand in late 1980-ies, during his pre-seminar schmoozing. He said that, while the discrimination was initially directed against the Jews, it eventually was expanded to include all bright applicants. The reason was that to effect the policy, the admission committees had to be staffed with people willing to be unfair (give super-hard problems to specific individuals) to people they dislike (there was no lack of volunteer anti-Semites). Such people would tend to let their personal feelings affect their fairness across the board, not just towards the "official undesirables". Thus they would let their natural envy towards bright kids negatively affect their fairness. This is why even non-Jewish graduates of the best schools (e.g., 57) found it harder to gain admission."