NUMERUS CLAUSUS
Numerus Clausus, a Latin term meaning a restricted number, refers to the practice of setting a quota for the number of persons of some category--usually Jews--who will be admitted to an educational institution, most often a university. This type of discrimination was normal in Czarist Russia. After World War I, the use of Numerus Clausus was formalized in Hungary, where the number of Jews who could be admitted to the universities was officially designated as no more than five percent of the total enrollment. It became a common practice at universities in other European countries as well; in Poland, the quota for Jewish admissions was ten percent.
Beginning in the 1920's a similar practice allowed unofficial, but widely observed quotas on Jewish enrollment at universities in the United States, particularly at the more prestigious schools in the northeastern states. These were the schools to which the children of recent Jewish immigrants were most likely to seek admission.
In recent years several major American universities in the western states have been investigated for following a similar policy to restrict the number of Asian student admissions.
Source: The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, Cecil Roth, Editor in Chief, Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New York: 1959