Ivy League knew infected the Ivy League colleges". A business writer, warning in 2001 against discriminatory hiring, presented a cautionary example of an attitude to avoid (the bracketed phrase is his): The phrase "Ivy League" historically has been perceived as connected not only with academic excellence, but also with social elitism. In 1936, sportswriter John Kieran noted that student editors at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Penn were advocating the formation of an athletic association. In urging them to consider "Army and Navy and Georgetown and Fordham and Syracuse and Brown and Pitt" as candidates for membership, he exhorted: Aspects
Black Ivy League First Lady Michelle Obama; college basketball coaches Craig Robinson (also Michelle Obama's brother) and John Thompson III; and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Samuel Pierce. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas earned his bachelor's degree at a non-Ivy school, but earned his J.D. at Yale Law School. In 2004, the Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS) at Columbia University sponsored an academic conference entitled "Growing Black Ivy" which drew 200 scholars to discuss black participation at elite Ivy League institutions. Competition for top students have grown more intense. For example, Cornell announced a change in its financial aid