There is a documented history of discrimination in the admission process for students to the University of Toronto’s medical school related to factors such as ethnicity, religion, race, and gender. Scholarship in this area has primarily surrounded the quota on Jewish students. While it was previously thought that no official quotas were in place against Jewish student admissions at U of T’s medical school, recent research shows that limitations were in effect from at least 1957-1959. Additionally, limitations on Jewish doctors are known to have been in place for internships and clinical work at University-affiliated teaching hospitals and for faculty at the U of T Department of Medicine.

The sources below address discrimination and quotas against Jewish, Muslim, Black, Catholic, American, and female students.

Duffin, Jacalyn. “The Quota: ‘An Equally Serious Problem’ for Us All.” CBMH/BCHM 19, no. 2 (2002): 94–101. https://doi.org/10.3138/cbmh.19.2.327.

Jahangeer, Roshan Arah, Cynthia Whitehead, and Umberin Najeeb. “The Conditional Inclusion of Muslims in Medicine: Intersectional Experiences of Muslim Medical Students at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine from 1887-1964.” Canadian Medical Education Journal, June 24, 2024. https://doi.org/10.36834/cmej.78134.

Krongold, Joanna. “In Their Own Words: Jewish Doctors, Antisemitism, and the Restrictive Quota System at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine,” September 2022. https://temertymedicine.utoronto.ca/reflecting-historic-jewish-student-quotas-toronto-medical-education. 

Levi, Charles. “‘There Is a Definite Limitation Imposed’ (Robin Ross to Claude Bissell, 4 December 1959): The Jewish Quota in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto: Generational Memory Sustained by Documentation.” Historical Studies in Education 15, no. 1 (2003): 130–38. https://doi.org/10.32316/hse/rhe.v15i1.477.

Shorter, Edward. “New talent: Mount Sinai Hospital and Women’s College Hospital.” In Partnership for Excellence: Medicine at the University of Toronto and Academic Hospitals, 540-597. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. p. 597–634.

Related UTARMS accessions

• Donald Frederick Forster fonds, B1983-0040/015 (D.F. Forster to Mrs. Bird, chairman of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada)
• Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine fonds, B1987-0044/004 (Jan Steiner oral history)
• University of Toronto. Faculty of Medicine, A1979-0023/005
• University of Toronto. Faculty of Medicine Office of the Dean, A1986-0027/024
• University of Toronto, Office of the President, A1971-0011/033(07)
• University of Toronto. Office of the Registrar, A1973-0051/014