Sage Hall was not equally accessible to all female students, however. In 1929, two Black female students, Pauline Davis and Ruth Peyton, were denied residency at Sage by the Dean of Women, R. Louise Fitch. The decision was upheld by Cornell President Livingston Farrand, who wrote in a letter to Ruth Peyton's mother that ""... unfortunate as it may be, the placing of a colored student in one of the dormitories inevitably causes more embarrassment than satisfaction for such a student."" His predecessor, Jacob Gould Schurman, did involve himself in a similar controversy in 1911, when he had ruled in favor of admitting two Black female students to Sage College after 269 of their white peers had petitioned against it, declaring, "“University doors must be open to all students irrespective of race or color or creed ...”" By the time the decision was made, however, the two students had already left Cornell.