Ethnic origins of presidents of Yale University

[2013-] Peter Salovey - Jewish.

[1993–2013] Richard C. Levin - Jewish. 'With the forces of globalization becoming ever more visible in the early 1990s, Levin called in his inaugural address for Yale to become "a world university." Updating the time-honored view of Yale as a training ground for the next generation's elite, he expanded its traditional vision from a national to a global one, urging Yale to "aspire to educate leaders for the whole world."' (Jerome Karabel. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale ...)

[1992–1993] Howard R. Lamar - "He was born in 1923 in Tuskegee, Alabama, U.S.,[3] and was drawn into history in part by his rich family history which includes two United States Supreme Court justices and the second president of the Republic of Texas."

[1986–1992] Benno C. Schmidt, Jr. - Born in New York to Texas-born parents; half-German father.

[1977–1986] A. Bartlett Giamatti - "Giamatti was born in Boston and grew up in South Hadley, Massachusetts, the son of Mary Claybaugh Walton (Smith College '35) and Valentine John Giamatti. His father was professor and chairman of the Department of Italian Language and Literature at Mount Holyoke College.[1] Giamatti's paternal grandparents were Italian immigrants Angelo Giammattei (Italian pronunciation: [dʒamaˈttɛi]) and Maria Lavorgna (Italian pronunciation: [laˈvɔrɲɲa]): his grandfather Angelo emigrated to the United States from Telese, near Naples, Italy, around 1900."

[1977–1977] Hanna Holborn Gray - Born in Germany. Daughter of "Hajo Holborn, whose wife, however, was Jewish" (http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/publications/occasional/2006-02/paper.pdf)

[1963–1977] Kingman Brewster, Jr. - New England ancestry (also see here).

[1951–1963] Alfred Whitney Griswold - Born in New Jersey. New England ancestry. "Furthermore, even if the candidate from Bronx Science was not Jewish himself, he came from a school that was predominantly Jewish [. . .] at a time when anti-Semitism in Yale's admissions was covert but active. Brewster's predecessor Whitney Griswold did not condone this kind of discrimination, but neither was he interested in rooting it out. [. . .] In the early 1960s, Yale was found to accept a lower percentage of Jews than any other Ivy League college." (Geoffrey Kabaservice. The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal ...)

[1937–1951] Charles Seymour - New England ancestry.

A big part of the problem was the exceptionally ingrown character of the Yale faculty: as late as 1950, half its members had Yale degrees. As Kabaservice points out, "Standards for appointment and promotions tended to emphasize citizenship rather than scholarship, clubbability rather than real merit," and "inheritance, wealth, background and social standing" remained "significant criteria." In such an atmosphere, "dark blossoms of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism flourished" in many departments.

Yale's admissions policy only compounded the problem. Under the admininstration of CHarles Seymour (B.A. '08, Ph.D. '11), Yale's president from 1937 to 1950, the selection of students was consistently and powerfully tilted toward the usual handful of preferred categories: athletes, alumni sons, and boarding school graduates, many of whom had less than sterling academic qualifications. [Jerome Karabel. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale ...]

[1921–1937] James Rowland Angell - New England ancestry.

[1899–1921] Arthur Twining Hadley - New England ancestry.

[1886–1899] The Reverend Timothy Dwight V - New England ancestry.