The signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was heralded as a tremendous victory for the civil rights movement, the fulfillment of a decade-long struggle to enforce the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Along with measures against job and housing discrimination, the Civil Rights Act included provisions specifically designed to overcome the white South's massive resistance campaign and enforce school desegregation. Despite the continued intransigence of segregationists, these measures proved successful and white public schools across the South opened their doors to black children. With segregationists in retreat and the Voting Rights Act on the horizon, this was a time of celebration for civil rights activists. But this was not the end of the story.

“Is it possible to select medical students scientifically?” asked Mary D. Salter in a 1942 journal article that examined the Medical College Aptitude Test (MCAT). Salter, a Lecturer in Psychology at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto answered affirmatively, pointing out that “scientific selection of students would greatly reduce the wastage of time, money, and effort involved when students fail.”

In a letter to his Jesuit superior in the spring of 1558, John Paul Nicolas, S.J., described a recent argument with the bishop of Perugia: