In a press release distributed earlier today by his Office, Jeff Orleans, Commissioner of the Ivy League, officially announced that the Ivy League would expand to ten teams by admitting Morgan State and Grambling State University.
From the statement by Jeff Orleans:
"The Ivy League could live no longer with its hypocritical policy of athletic apartheid. It was disgraceful that eight institutions that regard themselves as the moral beacons of America would refuse to play institution where the student body was primarily black. This stain on the Leagues' honor could no linger be tolerated.
"I am proud to announce that Morgan State University located in Baltimore, Maryland and Grambling State University located in Grambling, Louisiana have been granted full admission to the Ivy League. It was only by taking this action that we can show America that we are 100% committed to diversity in the university, on the playing fields, and in America."
Alumni reaction was decidedly negative. Typical was the response of Ralph Waldo Anderson IV (Dartmouth, 1937)."I have attended every Dartmouth football game since I was a freshman. I was at the Dartmouth-Brown game when my first son was born. I missed my mother's funeral because the Dartmouth-Harvard game was more important. I had friends rescue me from the hospital the day after I had my prostate removed so I could sit wearing only my hospital gown while being pelted by freezing rain and watch Dartmouth lose a heartbreakingly close game to Yale 57-0. But this is too much. How the hell am I going to continue this streak if I can't even finds these schools on my map of New England?"
Rod Broadway, the head football coach at Grambling State University also had reservations about joining the Ivy League. "I don't see a problem with the academic index or need based aid-most of our scholar athletes are very poor and will qualify. I am concerned of the quality of competition. What purpose is served by running up the score against white prep school sissy boys every Saturday? "
