Editing Ivy League (section)

==History==
===Institutional history===
{{sticky header}}
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! width= 200px style="{{CollegePrimaryStyle|Ivy League|border=1|color= white }}"| Institution
! width= px style="{{CollegePrimaryStyle|Ivy League|border=1|color= white }}"| Founded as
! width= px style="{{CollegePrimaryStyle|Ivy League|border=1|color= white }}"| Founded
! width= px style="{{CollegePrimaryStyle|Ivy League|border=1|color= white }}"| Chartered
! width= px style="{{CollegePrimaryStyle|Ivy League|border=1|color= white }}"| First instruction
! width= px style="{{CollegePrimaryStyle|Ivy League|border=1|color= white }}"| Founding affiliation
|-
! scope="row" |[[Harvard University]]
|Harvard College<ref>{{Cite web |date=2007-02-05 |title=The Harvard Guide: Cambridge |url=http://www.news.harvard.edu/guide/commu/index.html |access-date=2024-07-18 |quote=Cambridge was founded in 1630 as Newtowne. In 1637, the tiny village was designated as the location of the then-unnamed college, which would be named Harvard the following year. |archive-date=February 5, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070205041058/http://www.news.harvard.edu/guide/commu/index.html |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref>
|1636
|1650
|1642
|[[Nonsectarian]],{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}} founded by [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] [[Congregationalism in the United States|Congregationalists]]
|-
! scope="row" |[[Yale University]]
|Collegiate School
|1701
|1701<ref name="The Yale Corporation-1976">{{cite web|year=1976|title=The Yale Corporation: Charter and Legislation|url=http://www.yale.edu/about/University-Charter.pdf|quote=By the Gov<sup>rn</sup>, in Council & Representatives of his Maj<sup>ties</sup> Colony of Connecticut in Gen<sup>rll</sup> Court Assembled, New-Haven, Oct<sup>r</sup> 9: 1701|access-date=April 24, 2021|archive-date=June 3, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140603002044/http://www.yale.edu/about/University-Charter.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>
|1702
|Calvinist (Congregationalist)
|-
! scope="row" |[[Princeton University]]
|College of New Jersey
|1746{{Efn|Princeton University has historical ties to an older college. Five of the twelve members of Princeton's first board of trustees were very closely associated with a "[[Log College]]" operated by Presbyterian minister [[William Tennent]] and his son [[Gilbert Tennent|Gilbert]] in [[Bucks County, Pennsylvania]] from 1726 until 1746.<ref name="princeton1">{{cite web |url=http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/log_college.html |title=Log College |publisher=Etcweb1.princeton.edu |access-date=February 19, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304022928/http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/log_college.html |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Because the College of New Jersey and the Log College shared the same religious affiliation (a moderate element within the "[[The Old Side-New Side Controversy|New Side]]" or "[[Old and New Light|New Light]]" wing of the [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterian Church]]) and there was a considerable overlap in their boards of trustees, some historians suggest that there is sufficient connection between this school and the College of New Jersey which would enable Princeton to claim a founding date of 1726. However, Princeton does not officially do so and a university historian says that the "facts do not warrant" such a claim.<ref name="princeton1"/>}}
|1746<ref name="The Princeton University Press-1906">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/chartersbylawsof00prin|title=The Charters and By-Laws of the Trustees of Princeton University|date=1906|publisher=The Princeton University Press|location=Princeton, NJ|pages=[https://archive.org/details/chartersbylawsof00prin/page/11 11]–20|quote=A Charter to Incorporate Sundry Persons to found a College pass'd the Great Seal of this Province of New Jersey ... the 22d October, 1746 ... The Charter thus mentioned has been lost ...}}</ref>
|1747
|Nonsectarian,<ref name="princetonchapeltour" /> founded by Calvinist [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]]<ref name="princetonchapeltour">{{cite web|url=https://www.princeton.edu/~oktour/virtualtour/english/Stop05.htm|title=University Chapel: Orange Key Virtual Tour of Princeton University|publisher=Princeton University}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=December 2024}}
|-
! scope="row" |[[Columbia University]]
|King's College
|1754
|1754<ref name="New York, Printed for the College-1895">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/chartersactsoffi00colurich|title=Charters, acts and official documents together with the lease and re-lease by Trinity church of a portion of the King's farm|date=June 1895|publisher=New York, Printed for the College|pages=[https://archive.org/details/chartersactsoffi00colurich/page/10 10]–24|quote=Witness our Trusty and well beloved'James De Lancey, Esq., our Lieutenant Governor, and Commander in chief in and over our Province of New York ... this thirty first day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and fifty four, and of our Reign the twenty eighth.}}</ref>
|1754
|[[Church of England]]
|-
! scope="row" |[[University of Pennsylvania]]
|College of Philadelphia<ref name="PennFoundingYear">See [[University of Pennsylvania]] for details of the circumstances of Penn's origin.  Penn considered its founding date to be 1749 for over a century.[http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/trustees.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121125023024/http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/trustees.html|date=November 25, 2012}}  In 1895, elite universities in the United States agreed that henceforth formal [[Academic procession|academic processions]] would place visiting dignitaries and other officials in the order of their institution's founding dates.  Penn's periodical "The Alumni Register," published by the General Alumni Society, then began a grassroots campaign to retroactively revise the university's founding date to 1740.  In 1899, the Board of Trustees acceded to the alumni initiative and voted to change the founding date to 1740, the date of foundation for the trust that was used to establish the school, following the usage used by Harvard University.  The rationale offered in 1899 was that, in 1750, founder Benjamin Franklin and his original board of trustees purchased a completed but unused building and assumed a trust from a group that had hoped to begin a church and charity school in Philadelphia.  This edifice was commonly called the "New Building" by local citizens and was referred to by such name in Franklin's memoirs as well as the legal bill of sale in Penn's archives.  No name is stated or known for the associated educational trust, hence "Unnamed Charity School" serves as a placeholder to refer to the trust which is the premise for Penn's association with a founding date of 1740.  The first named entity in Penn's early history was the 1751 secondary school for boys and charity school for indigent children called "Academy and Charitable School in the Province of Pennsylvania."[http://www.upenn.edu/about/heritage.php] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020235939/http://www.upenn.edu/about/heritage.php|date=October 20, 2012}}  Undergraduate education began in 1755 and the organization then changed its name to "College, Academy and Charity School of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania."[http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/penn1700s.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060428155156/http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/penn1700s.html|date=April 28, 2006}} Operation of the charity school was discontinued a few years later.</ref>
|1740 or 1749 or 1755{{efn|There is some disagreement about Penn's date of founding as the university has never used its legal charter date for this purpose and, in addition, took the unusual step of changing its official founding date approximately 150 years after the fact. The first meeting of the founding trustees of the secondary school which eventually became the [[University of Pennsylvania]] took place in November 1749. Secondary instruction for boys at the ''[[Academy of Philadelphia]]'' began in August 1751. Undergraduate education for men began after a collegiate charter for the ''[[College of Philadelphia]]'' was granted in 1755. Penn initially designated 1750 as its founding date. Sometime later in its early history, Penn began to refer to 1749 instead. The school considered 1749 to be its founding date for more than a century until, in 1895, elite universities in the United States agreed that formal [[academic procession]]s would place visiting dignitaries and other officials in the order of their institution's founding dates. Four years later in 1899, Penn's board of trustees voted to retroactively revise the university's founding date from 1749 to 1740 in order to become older than Princeton, which had been chartered in 1746. The premise for this revised founding date was that the Academy of Philadelphia purchased the building and assumed the educational mandate of an inactive trust which had originally hoped to open a charity school for indigent children. This was part of a 1740 project that had been planned to comprise both a church and school though because of insufficient funding, only the church was built and even it was never put into use. The dormant church building was conveyed to the Academy of Philadelphia in 1750.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/entry.html |title=Table of Contents, Penn History, University of Pennsylvania University Archives |publisher=Archives.upenn.edu |access-date=February 19, 2012 |archive-date=February 25, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120225124708/http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/entry.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0902/thomas.html |title=Gazette: Building Penn's Brand (Sept/Oct 2002) |publisher=Upenn.edu |access-date=February 19, 2012 |archive-date=November 20, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051120020503/http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0902/thomas.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.princeton.edu/mudd/news/faq/topics/older.shtml |title=Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library: FAQ Princeton University vs. University of Pennsylvania: Which is the older institution? |publisher=Princeton.edu |date=November 6, 2007 |access-date=February 19, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030319132644/http://www.princeton.edu/mudd/news/faq/topics/older.shtml |archive-date=March 19, 2003 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

}}
|1755
|1755
|Nonsectarian,<ref name="Penn">Penn's website, like other sources, makes an important point of Penn's heritage being nonsectarian, associated with [[Benjamin Franklin]] and the Academy of Philadelphia's nonsectarian board of trustees: "The goal of Franklin's nonsectarian, practical plan would be the education of a business and governing class rather than of clergymen."[http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/penn1700s.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060428155156/http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/penn1700s.html|date=April 28, 2006}}. Jencks and Riesman (2001) write "The Anglicans who founded the University of Pennsylvania, however, were evidently anxious not to alienate Philadelphia's Quakers, and they made their new college officially nonsectarian."  In Franklin's 1749 founding [http://www.archives.upenn.edu/primdocs/1749proposals.html Proposals relating to the education of youth in Pensilvania] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060504075701/http://www.archives.upenn.edu/primdocs/1749proposals.html|date=May 4, 2006}} [http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/printedbooksNew/index.cfm?TextID=franklin_youth&PagePosition=20 (page images)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071018223123/http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/printedbooksNew/index.cfm?TextID=franklin_youth&PagePosition=20|date=October 18, 2007}}, religion is not mentioned directly as a subject of study, but he states in a footnote that the study of "''History'' will also afford frequent Opportunities of showing the Necessity of a ''Publick Religion,'' from its Usefulness to the Publicks; the Advantage of a Religious Character among private Persons; the Mischiefs of Superstition, &c. and the Excellency of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION above all others antient or modern." Starting in 1751, the same trustees also operated a Charity School for Boys, whose curriculum combined "general principles of Christianity" with practical instruction leading toward careers in business and the "mechanical arts." [http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/charitysch.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060620024258/http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/charitysch.html|date=June 20, 2006}}, and thus might be described as "non-denominational Christian." The charity school was originally planned and a trust was organized on paper in 1740 by followers of travelling evangelist [[George Whitefield]].  The school was to have operated inside a church supported by the same group of adherents.  But the organizers ran short of financing and, although the frame of the building was raised, the interior was left unfinished.  The founders of the Academy of Philadelphia purchased the unused building in 1750 for their new venture and, in the process, assumed the original trust.  Since 1899, Penn has claimed a founding date of 1740, based on the organizational date of the charity school and the premise that it had institutional identity with the Academy of Philadelphia. Whitefield was a firebrand Methodist associated with [[Great Awakening|The Great Awakening]]; since the Methodists did not formally break from the Church of England until 1784, Whitefield in 1740 would be labeled [[Church of England|Episcopalian]], and in fact ''Brown'' University, emphasizing its own pioneering nonsectarianism, refers to Penn's origin as "Episcopalian".[https://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/ourhistory.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118080913/http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/ourhistory.html|date=January 18, 2012}} Penn is sometimes assumed to have Quaker ties (its athletic teams are called "Quakers," and the cross-registration alliance between Penn, Haverford, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr is known as the "Quaker Consortium.") But Penn's website does not assert any formal affiliation with Quakerism, historic or otherwise, and [[Haverford College]] implicitly asserts a non-Quaker origin for Penn when it states that "Founded in 1833, Haverford is the oldest institution of higher learning with Quaker roots in North America."{{cite web |title=About Haverford College |url=http://www.haverford.edu/publicrelations/news/QandA.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204054925/https://www.haverford.edu/publicrelations/news/QandA.html |archive-date=February 4, 2012 |access-date=February 19, 2012}}</ref> founded by [[Church of England]]/[[Methodism|Methodist]] members<ref name="Dulany Addison-1911">{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Protestant Episcopal Church |volume=22 |pages=473–475 |first=Daniel |last=Dulany Addison }}</ref><ref name="Brown.edu">{{cite web |url=https://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/ourhistory.html |title=Brown Admission: Our History |publisher=Brown.edu |access-date=January 30, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110208022301/http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/ourhistory.html |archive-date=February 8, 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
|-
! scope="row" |[[Brown University]]
|College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
|1764
|1764
|1765<ref name="Hoeveler">Hoeveler, David J., ''Creating the American Mind: Intellect and Politics in the Colonial Colleges'', Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, p. 192</ref>
|[[Baptist]], founding charter promises "no religious tests" and "full liberty of conscience"<ref name="Cambridge University Press-1911">Brown's website characterizes it as "the Baptist answer to Congregationalist Yale and Harvard; Presbyterian Princeton; and Episcopalian Penn and Columbia," but adds that at the time it was "the only one that welcomed students of all religious persuasions."[https://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/ourhistory.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118080913/http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/ourhistory.html|date=January 18, 2012}} Brown's charter stated that "into this liberal and catholic institution shall never be admitted any religious tests, but on the contrary, all the members hereof shall forever enjoy full, free, absolute, and uninterrupted liberty of conscience." The charter called for twenty-two of the thirty-six trustees to be Baptists, but required that the remainder be "five Friends, four Congregationalists, and five Episcopalians."{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Providence|volume=22|page=511}}</ref>
|-
! scope="row" |[[Dartmouth College]]
|Dartmouth College
|1769
|1769<ref name="Dartmouth College Charter">{{cite web|title=Dartmouth College Charter|url=http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/rauner/dartmouth/dc-charter.html|quote=In testimony whereof, we have caused these our letters to be made patent, and the public seal of our said province of New Hampshire to be hereunto affixed. Witness our trusty and well beloved John Wentworth, Esquire, Governor and commander-in-chief in and over our said province, [etc.], this thirteenth day of December, in the tenth year of our reign, and in the year of our Lord 1769.|access-date=April 24, 2021|archive-date=September 27, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150927001030/https://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/rauner/dartmouth/dc-charter.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
|1769
|Calvinist (Congregationalist)
|-
! scope="row" |[[Cornell University]]
|Cornell University
|1865
|1865
|1868<ref name="Geiger-2000">{{Cite book|last=Geiger|first=Roger L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T7nFTW57MgcC|title=The American College in the Nineteenth Century|date=2000|publisher=Vanderbilt University Press|isbn=978-0-8265-1364-9|pages=163|language=en}}</ref>
|Nonsectarian
|}

:<small>'''Note:''' Six of the eight Ivy League universities consider their founding dates to be simply the date that they received their charters and thus became legal corporations with the authority to grant academic degrees. Harvard University uses the date that the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony formally allocated funds for the creation of a college. Harvard was chartered in 1650, although classes had been conducted for approximately a decade by then. The University of Pennsylvania's founding date is discussed in the footnote above. "Religious affiliation" refers to financial sponsorship, formal association with, and promotion by, a religious denomination. All of the institutions in the Ivy League are private (Cornell includes both private and state-supported schools) and are no longer associated with any religion.</small>

=== Origin of the name ===
[[File:Ivy League map.svg|thumb|Map of the eight Ivy League universities in the [[United States]]]]
{{Multiple image
| align =
| direction = vertical
| image1 = Das östliche Eingangstor der Brown University.jpg
| caption1 = Soldiers Memorial Gate (1921) at [[Brown University]]
| image2 = Columbia University New York November 2016 002.jpg
| caption2 = [[Low Memorial Library]] (1895) at [[Columbia University]]
| image3 = Olive Tjaden Hall, Cornell University.jpg
| caption3 = Tjaden Hall (1883) at [[Cornell University]]
| image4 = Baker-Library-Dartmouth-College-Hanover-New-Hampshire-05-2018a.jpg
| caption4 = [[Baker-Berry Library]] (1928) at [[Dartmouth College]]
| image5 = Widener Library.jpg
| caption5= [[Widener Library]] (1915) at [[Harvard University]]
| image6 = Alexander Hall, the home to both the Princeton University Orchestra and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (edited).jpg
| caption6 = [[Alexander Hall (Princeton University)|Alexander Hall]] (1894) at [[Princeton University]]
| image7 = North facade of College Hall, Penn Campus.jpg
| caption7 = [[College Hall (University of Pennsylvania)|College Hall]] (1873) at the [[University of Pennsylvania]]
| image8 = Connecticut Hall, Yale University.jpg
| caption8 = [[Connecticut Hall]] (1752) on [[Old Campus (Yale University)|Yale University's Old Campus]]
| alt1 =
| total_width = 230
}}
"Planting the [[Hedera|ivy]]" was a customary class day ceremony at many colleges in the 1800s. In 1893, an alumnus told ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]'', "In 1850, class day was placed upon the University Calendar...the custom of planting the ivy, while the ivy oration was delivered, arose about this time."<ref>{{cite web|title=Class Day, New and Old|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1893/6/3/class-day-old-and-new-it-is/ |website=The Harvard Crimson |date=June 3, 1893 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405235748/https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1893/6/3/class-day-old-and-new-it-is/?print=1 |archive-date= Apr 5, 2023 }}</ref> At Penn, graduating seniors started the custom of planting ivy at a university building each spring in 1873 and that practice was formally designated as "[[Ivy stone|Ivy Day]]" in 1874.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Penn: Ivy day and Ivy Stones, a Penn Tradition|url=http://www.upenn.edu/spotlights/ivy-day-and-ivy-stones-penn-tradition|access-date=December 9, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120715230153/http://www.upenn.edu/spotlights/ivy-day-and-ivy-stones-penn-tradition|archive-date=July 15, 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> Ivy planting ceremonies are recorded at [[Yale University]], [[Simmons College (Massachusetts)|Simmons College]], and [[Bryn Mawr College]] among other schools.<ref>''Boston Daily Globe'', June 27, 1882, p. 4: "CLASS DAY.: Yale Seniors Plant the Ivy, Sing "Blage," and Entertain the Beauty of New Haven"</ref><ref>Boston Evening Transcript, June 11, 1912, p. 12, "Simmons Seniors Hosts Class Day Exercises Late in Afternoon, Planting of the Ivy will be One of the Features;</ref><ref>{{cite news|date=June 9, 1907|title=Play a Romance and Plant Ivy, Pretty Class Day Exercises of the Women's College|newspaper=The Gazette Times|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1126&dat=19070609&id=uXpRAAAAIBAJ&pg=4741,1858451|access-date=October 22, 2012}}</ref> Princeton's "Ivy Club" was founded in 1879.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Ivy Club: History|url=http://theivyclub.net/history/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111014234433/http://theivyclub.net/history/|archive-date=October 14, 2011}}</ref>

The first usage of ''Ivy'' in reference to a group of colleges is from sportswriter [[Stanley Woodward (editor)|Stanley Woodward]] (1895–1965).

{{blockquote|A proportion of our eastern ivy colleges are meeting little fellows another Saturday before plunging into the strife and the turmoil.|Stanley Woodward, ''[[New-York Tribune]]'', October 14, 1933, describing the football season<ref>"Yale Book of Quotations" (2006) [[Yale University Press]] edited by Fred R. Shapiro</ref>}}

The first known instance of the term ''Ivy League'' appeared in ''[[The Christian Science Monitor]]'' on February 7, 1935.<ref name=officialhistory/><ref>"The Yale Book of Quotations" (2006) [[Yale University]] Press, edited by Fred R. Shapiro</ref><ref>[[OED|Oxford English Dictionary]] entry for "Ivy League"</ref> Several sportswriters and other journalists used the term shortly later to refer to the older colleges, those along the northeastern seaboard of the United States, chiefly the nine institutions with origins dating from the [[Colonial colleges|colonial era]], together with the [[United States Military Academy]] (West Point), the [[United States Naval Academy]], and a few others. These schools were known for their long-standing traditions in intercollegiate athletics, often being the first schools to participate in such activities. At this time, however, none of these institutions made efforts to form an athletic league.

A common [[folk etymology]] attributes the name to the [[Roman numeral]] for four ({{rn|IV}}), asserting that there was such a sports league originally with four members. The ''Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins'' helped to perpetuate this belief. The supposed "{{rn|IV}} League" was formed over a century ago and consisted of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and a fourth school that varies depending on who is telling the story.<ref>The [[Chicago Public Library]] reports the "{{rn|IV}} League" explanation, [http://www.chipublib.org/008subject/005genre/faqiv.html] sourced only from the ''Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins''. {{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref>Various ''Ask Ezra'' student columns report the "IV League" explanation, apparently relying on the ''Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins'' as the sole source: [http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=895550400#question13] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030722214918/http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=895550400#question13|date=July 22, 2003}} [http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=798955200#question9] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030721134212/http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=798955200#question9|date=July 21, 2003}} [http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=639892800#question5] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030524211531/http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=639892800#question5|date=May 24, 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2002/101702/askbenny.html |title=The Penn Current / October 17, 2002 / Ask Benny |publisher=Upenn.edu |access-date=January 30, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100606232308/http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2002/101702/askbenny.html |archive-date=June 6, 2010 }}</ref> However, it is clear that Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Yale met on November 23, 1876, at the so-called Massasoit Convention to decide on uniform rules for the emerging game of American football, which rapidly spread.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/sports/football/1800s/origins.html |title=This according to the Penn history of varsity football |publisher=Archives.upenn.edu |access-date=January 30, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100718192438/http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/sports/football/1800s/origins.html |archive-date=July 18, 2010 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Pre-Ivy League===
Seven out of the eight Ivy League schools are [[Colonial colleges|Colonial Colleges]]: institutions of higher education founded prior to the [[American Revolution]]. Cornell, the exception to this commonality, was founded immediately after the [[American Civil War]]. These seven colleges served as the primary institutions of higher learning in [[British America]]'s [[New England|Northern]] and [[Middle Colonies]]. During the colonial era, the schools' faculties and founding boards were largely drawn from other Ivy League institutions. Also represented were British graduates from the [[University of Cambridge]], the [[University of Oxford]], the [[University of St. Andrews]], and the [[University of Edinburgh]].

The influence of these institutions on the founding of other colleges and universities is notable. This included the Southern public college movement which blossomed in the decades surrounding the turn of the 19th century when Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia established what became the flagship universities of their respective states. In 1801, a majority of the first board of trustees for what became the [[University of South Carolina]] were Princeton alumni. They appointed [[Jonathan Maxcy]], a Brown graduate, as the university's first president. [[Thomas Cooper (American politician, born 1759)|Thomas Cooper]], an Oxford alumnus and University of Pennsylvania faculty member, became the second president of the South Carolina college. The founders of the [[University of California]] came from Yale, hence [[University of California, Berkeley|Berkeley]]'s colors are [[Yale Blue]] and California Gold.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://resource.berkeley.edu/r_html/r01_04.html |title=Resource: Student history |publisher=Resource.berkeley.edu |access-date=January 30, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100909165637/http://resource.berkeley.edu/r_html/r01_04.html |archive-date=September 9, 2010 }}</ref> [[Stanford University]] has, since its earliest days, been nicknamed the "Cornell of the West": more than half of Stanford's initial faculty, as well as its first two presidents, had connections to Cornell as alumni or faculty.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davis |first1=Margo Baumgartner|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oe0qpzomMwkC&pg=PA14|title=The Stanford Album: A Photographic History, 1885–1945 |last2=Nilan |first2=Roxanne |date=1989 |publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-1639-0 |page=14}}</ref>

A plurality of the Ivy League schools have identifiable [[Protestant]] roots. Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth all held early associations with the [[Congregational church|Congregationalists]]. Princeton was financed by [[The Old Side-New Side Controversy|New Light]] Presbyterians, though originally led by a Congregationalist. Brown was founded by Baptists, though the university's charter stipulated that students should enjoy "full liberty of conscience." Columbia was founded by Anglicans, who composed 10 of the college's first 15 presidents. Penn and Cornell were officially nonsectarian, though Protestants were well represented in their respective founding. In the early nineteenth century, the specific purpose of training Calvinist ministers was handed off to [[Seminary|theological seminaries]], but a denominational tone and religious traditions including compulsory chapel often lasted well into the twentieth century.

"Ivy League" is sometimes used as a way of referring to an elite class, even though institutions such as Cornell University were among the first in the United States to reject racial and gender discrimination in their admissions policies. This dates back to at least 1935.<ref>{{cite book | title=Snobbery: The American Version | first=Joseph | last=Epstein | year=2003 | publisher=Houghton Mifflin | isbn=0-618-34073-4 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/snobbery00jose }} p. 55, "by WASP Baltzell meant something much more specific; he intended to cover a select group of people who passed through a congeries of elite American institutions: certain eastern [[University-preparatory school|prep schools]], the Ivy League colleges, and the [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal Church]] among them."</ref> Novels and memoirs attest this sense, as a social elite; to some degree independent of the actual schools.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite book|last=Auchincloss|first=Louis|url=https://archive.org/details/eastsidestorynov00auch_0|title=East Side Story|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|year=2004|isbn=0-618-45244-3}} p. 179, "he dreaded the aridity of snobbery which he knew infected the Ivy League colleges"</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=McDonald|first=Janet|title=Project Girl|publisher=University of California Press|year=2000|isbn=0-520-22345-4}} p. 163 "''Newsweek'' is a morass of incest, nepotism, elitism, racism and utter classic white male patriarchal corruption. ... It is completely Ivy League – a Vassar/Columbia J-School dumping ground ... I will always be excluded, regardless of how many Ivy League degrees I acquire, because of the next level of hurdles: family connections and money."</ref>

===History of the athletic league===
====19th century====
[[File:Yale's four-oared crew team with 1876 Centennial Regatta trophy.jpg|thumb|Yale University's four-oared [[rowing|crew]] team, posing with the 1876 Centennial [[Regatta]] trophy]]
[[File:Harvard vs yale program 1875.jpg|thumb|The 1875 program for the [[Harvard Crimson|Harvard]] vs. [[Yale Bulldogs|Yale]] game played using [[Rugby football|rugby]] rules]]
In 1870, the nation's first formal athletic league was created in 1870 with the formation of the [[Rowing Association of American Colleges]] (RAAC), composed exclusively of Ivy League universities. RAAC hosted a national championship in rowing  from 1870 to 1894.

The first [[Harvard–Yale football rivalry|Harvard vs Yale]] rugby football contest was held in 1875, two years after the inaugural [[Princeton–Yale football rivalry|Princeton–Yale]] rugby football contest. Harvard athlete Nathaniel Curtis challenged [[1875 Yale Bulldogs football team|Yale]]'s captain, William Arnold to a rugby-style game.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.171.html/2005/important-sports-memorabilia-and-cards-n08155|title=First Harvard versus Yale Football Game Program, 1875 - lot - Sotheby's|work=sothebys.com|access-date=January 14, 2024|archive-date=January 11, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111203156/http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.171.html/2005/important-sports-memorabilia-and-cards-n08155|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theunbalancedline.com/2010/03/year-by-year-1875.html|title=Year by Year 1875|work=theunbalancedline.com}}</ref>
Program for the "Foot Ball Match", Harvard v Yale, the first intercollegiate game. It is considered the first rugby game between Ivy League teams. The game was played at [[Hamilton Park (New Haven)|Hamilton Park]], a venue in [[New Haven, Connecticut]] (located at the intersection of Whalley Avenue and West Park Avenue<ref name=Stannard>Ed Stannard, [http://www.newhavenregister.com/articles/2009/02/08/news/new_haven/ctoldnewhaven.txt Photography exhibit reveals 'lost New Haven'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306222022/http://www.newhavenregister.com/articles/2009/02/08/news/new_haven/ctoldnewhaven.txt |date=2012-03-06 }}, The New Haven Register, Sunday, February 8, 2009</ref>). The two teams played with 15 players (rugby) on a side instead of 11 (soccer) as Yale would have preferred.

In 1881, [[University of Pennsylvania|Penn]], [[Harvard College]], [[Haverford College]], Princeton University (then known as College of New Jersey), and Columbia University (then known as Columbia College) formed The [[Intercollegiate sports team champions#Cricket|Intercollegiate Cricket Association]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thedp.com/article/2020/10/penn-cricket-team-historical-feature |title=Penn's oldest sport goes back 168 years, and it's not one you might think |website=www.thedp.com |access-date=April 17, 2021}}</ref> which [[Cornell University]] later joined.<ref name="web.archive.org">{{cite web |url=http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/sports/cricket/1864.html |website= |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180723200322/http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/sports/cricket/1864.html|access-date=April 17, 2021|archive-date= July 23, 2018|title=Cricket: Penn's First Organized Sport}}</ref> Penn won The Intercollegiate Cricket Association championship 23 times, including 18 solo victories and three shared with Haverford and Harvard, one shared with Haverford and Cornell, and one shared with just Haverford, during the 44 years that the Intercollegiate Cricket Association existed from 1881 through 1924.<ref>Haverford won such championship 19 times (3 shared with Penn and Harvard, 1 shared with Penn and Cornell, and 1 shared with Penn), and, in third place, Harvard won it 6 times, none after 1899 (3 shared with Haverford and Penn) accessed April 18, 2021.</ref>

In 1895, Cornell, Columbia, and Penn founded the [[Intercollegiate Rowing Association]], which remains the oldest collegiate athletic organizing body in the US. To this day, the IRA Championship Regatta determines the national champion in rowing and all of the Ivies are regularly invited to compete.

A basketball league was later created in 1902, when Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton formed the [[Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League]]; they were later joined by Penn and Dartmouth.

====20th century====
In 1906, the organization that eventually became the [[NCAA|National Collegiate Athletic Association]] was formed, primarily to formalize rules for the emerging sport of football. But of the 39 original member colleges in the NCAA, only two of them (Dartmouth and Penn) later became Ivies. In February 1903, intercollegiate wrestling began when Yale accepted a challenge from Columbia, published in the Yale News. The dual meet took place prior to a basketball game hosted by Columbia and resulted in a tie.

Two years later, Penn and Princeton also added wrestling teams, leading to the formation of the student-run Intercollegiate Wrestling Association, now the [[Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association]] (EIWA), the first and oldest collegiate wrestling league in the US.<ref>{{cite news | title = Columbia Celebrates College Wrestling Centennial | publisher = Columbia College Today | url = http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/may03/features5.php | access-date = September 4, 2014 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141010054526/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/may03/features5.php | archive-date = October 10, 2014 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[File:Yale-Princeton May 30 1882.jpg|thumb|A sketch of the Yale versus Princeton baseball game on May 30, 1882]]
Though schools now in Ivy League (such as Yale and Columbia) played against each other in the 1880s, it was not until 1930 that Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton and Yale formed the [[Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League]]; they were later joined by Harvard, Brown, Army and Navy. Before the formal establishment of the Ivy League, there was an "unwritten and unspoken agreement among certain Eastern colleges on athletic relations". The earliest reference to the "Ivy colleges" came in 1933, when [[Stanley Woodward (editor)|Stanley Woodward]] of the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' used it to refer to the eight current members plus Army.<ref name=officialhistory/> In 1935, the [[Associated Press]] reported on an example of collaboration between the schools:

{{blockquote|The athletic authorities of the so-called "Ivy League" are considering drastic measures to curb the increasing tendency toward riotous attacks on goal posts and other encroachments by spectators on playing fields.|The Associated Press|''The New York Times''<ref>{{cite news | agency = Associated Press | title = Colleges Searching for Check On Trend to Goal Post Riots | work = The New York Times | page = 33 | date = 1935-12-06 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1935/12/06/archives/colleges-searching-for-check-on-trend-to-goal-post-riots-eastern.html | access-date = July 23, 2018 | archive-date = July 24, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180724002313/https://www.nytimes.com/1935/12/06/archives/colleges-searching-for-check-on-trend-to-goal-post-riots-eastern.html | url-status = live }}</ref>}}

Despite such collaboration, the universities did not seem to consider the formation of the league as imminent. [[Romeyn Berry]], Cornell's manager of athletics, reported the situation in January 1936 as follows:

{{blockquote|text=I can say with certainty that in the last five years—and markedly in the last three months—there has been a strong drift among the eight or ten universities of the East which see a good deal of one another in sport toward a closer bond of confidence and cooperation and toward the formation of a common front against the threat of a breakdown in the ideals of amateur sport in the interests of supposed expediency.

Please do not regard that statement as implying the organization of an Eastern conference or even a poetic "Ivy League". That sort of thing does not seem to be in the cards at the moment.<ref>{{cite news | first = Robert F. | last = Kelley | title = Cornell Club Here Welcomes Lynah | work = The New York Times | page = 22 | date = 1936-01-17}}</ref>}}

Within a year of this statement and having held month-long discussions about the proposal, on December 3, 1936, the idea of "the formation of an Ivy League" gained enough traction among the undergraduate bodies of the universities that the ''[[Columbia Daily Spectator]]'', ''[[The Cornell Daily Sun]]'', ''[[The Dartmouth]]'', ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]'', ''[[The Daily Pennsylvanian]]'', ''[[The Daily Princetonian]]'' and the ''[[Yale Daily News]]'' would simultaneously run an editorial entitled "Now Is the Time", encouraging the seven universities to form the league in an effort to preserve the ideals of athletics.<ref>{{cite news | title = Immediate Formation of Ivy League Advocated at Seven Eastern Colleges | work = The New York Times | page = 33 | date = December 3, 1936}}</ref> Part of the editorial read as follows:

{{blockquote|The Ivy League exists already in the minds of a good many of those connected with football, and we fail to see why the seven schools concerned should be satisfied to let it exist as a purely nebulous entity where there are so many practical benefits which would be possible under definite organized association. The seven colleges involved fall naturally together by reason of their common interests and similar general standards and by dint of their established national reputation they are in a particularly advantageous position to assume leadership for the preservation of the ideals of intercollegiate athletics.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=456169 |title=The Harvard Crimson :: News :: AN EDITORIAL |publisher=Thecrimson.com |date=1936-12-03 |access-date=2011-01-30 |archive-date=October 16, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071016204452/http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=456169 |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}

The Ivies have been competing in sports as long as intercollegiate sports have existed in the United States. Rowing teams from Harvard and Yale met in the first sporting event held between students of two U.S. colleges on [[Lake Winnipesaukee]], [[New Hampshire]], on August 3, 1852. Harvard's team, "The Oneida", won the race and was presented with trophy black walnut oars from then-presidential nominee General [[Franklin Pierce]]. The proposal to create an athletic league did not succeed. On January 11, 1937, the athletic authorities at the schools rejected the "possibility of a [[heptagon]]al league in football such as these institutions maintain in basketball, baseball and track." However, they noted that the league "has such promising possibilities that it may not be dismissed and must be the subject of further consideration."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1937/01/12/archives/plea-for-an-ivy-football-league-rejected-by-college-authorities.html |title = Plea for an Ivy Football League Rejected by College Authorities | work = The New York Times | page = 26 | date = January 12, 1937}}</ref>

====Integration of athletic competition in the ''Ivy League''====
[[File:The 1879 Brown University Baseball Team.jpg|thumb|The 1879 Brown varsity baseball team. [[William Edward White|W.E. White]] (seated second from right) may have been the [[Baseball color line|first African-American]] to play major league baseball.<ref>Robert Siegel, "Black Baseball Pioneer William White's 1879 Game," National Public Radio, broadcast January 30, 2004 (audio at npr.org); Stefan Fatsis, [https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB107541676333815810 "Mystery of Baseball: Was William White Game's First Black?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140307215344/http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB107541676333815810 |date=March 7, 2014 }}, ''Wall Street Journal'', January 30, 2004; Peter Morris and Stefan Fatsis, "Baseball's Secret Pioneer: William Edward White, the first black player in major-league history," ''Slate'', February 4, 2014; Rick Harris, ''Brown University Baseball: A Legacy of the game'' (Charleston: The History Press, 2012), pp. 41–43</ref>]]
The integration of athletics followed a similar pattern to the overall integration of the Ivy League's in the 19th and early 20th century. There was no active policy that would discriminate against incorporating Black student athletes into the athletic coalition. Harvard has the earliest record of breaking the color barrier in athletics after recruiting [[William H. Lewis|William Henry Lewis]] to their [[Harvard Crimson football|football team]] in 1892.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Harvard Athletics and Black History |url=https://gocrimson.com/news/2021/1/19/general-harvard-athletics-and-black-history.aspx |access-date=2022-12-08 |website=Harvard University |date=February 2021 |language=en |archive-date=December 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221208183202/https://gocrimson.com/news/2021/1/19/general-harvard-athletics-and-black-history.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref> Dartmouth followed suit, with Black athletes integrating onto their football teams in 1904.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Black History Month: Pioneer Profiles |url=https://dartmouthsports.com/news/2021/2/18/black-history-month-pioneer-profiles-210217.aspx |access-date=2022-12-08 |website=Dartmouth College Athletics |language=en |archive-date=December 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221208183204/https://dartmouthsports.com/news/2021/2/18/black-history-month-pioneer-profiles-210217.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref> Brown integrated their football team shortly after, in 1916.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Fritz Pollard, Class of 1919 |url=https://www.brown.edu/about/history/timeline/fritz-pollard-class-1919 |access-date=2022-12-08 |website=Brown University Timeline |language=en |archive-date=December 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221208183206/https://www.brown.edu/about/history/timeline/fritz-pollard-class-1919 |url-status=live }}</ref> Cornell would follow suit in 1937.

[[File:Track (men's), 1907 ICAA point winners UPenn.jpg|thumb|right|The University of Pennsylvania men's track team was the 1907 [[IC4A]] point winner. Left to right: Guy Haskins, R.C. Folwell, T.R. Moffitt, [[John Taylor (relay runner)|John Baxter Taylor, Jr.]], the first black athlete in the U.S. to win a gold medal in the Olympics,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/79112 |title=John Taylor |work=Olympedia |access-date=5 March 2021 |archive-date=August 16, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240816111659/https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/79112 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Nathaniel Cartmell]], and J.D. Whitham (seated)]]
Penn had black students on their track and field team as early as 1903 ([[John Taylor (relay runner)|John Baxter Taylor, Jr.]], the first black athlete in the U.S. to win a gold medal in the Olympics) and a black student was named captain of the track team in 1918.<ref>{{Cite web |last=March |first=Lochlahn |title=Breaking barriers: Documenting the illustrious history of Black athletes at Penn |url=https://www.thedp.com/article/2020/09/penn-athletics-black-documenting-illustrious-history-ivy-league-discrimination-integration |access-date=2023-09-13 |website=www.thedp.com |language=en-us |archive-date=December 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221208183215/https://www.thedp.com/article/2020/09/penn-athletics-black-documenting-illustrious-history-ivy-league-discrimination-integration |url-status=live }}</ref> Columbia's track and field team would be integrated in 1934.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ben Johnson {{!}} Columbia Celebrates Black History and Culture |url=https://blackhistory.news.columbia.edu/people/ben-johnson |access-date=2022-12-08 |website=blackhistory.news.columbia.edu |archive-date=December 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221208183204/https://blackhistory.news.columbia.edu/people/ben-johnson |url-status=live }}</ref> Basketball would become integrated at Yale in 1926,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jay Swift, the first African-American to play a varsity sport at Yale, is remembered here during Black History Month |date=February 14, 2018 |url=https://roundballdaily.com/2018/02/13/jay-swift-first-african-american-play-varsity-sport-yale-remembered-black-history-month/ |access-date=2022-12-08 |language=en-US |archive-date=December 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221208184706/https://roundballdaily.com/2018/02/13/jay-swift-first-african-american-play-varsity-sport-yale-remembered-black-history-month/ |url-status=live }}</ref> at Princeton in 1947.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ivy League Black History |url=http://ivy50.com/blackhistory/story.aspx?sid=1/7/2009 |access-date=2022-12-08 |website=ivy50.com |archive-date=December 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221208183200/http://ivy50.com/blackhistory/story.aspx?sid=1/7/2009 |url-status=live }}</ref>

====Post-World War II====
In 1945 the presidents of the eight schools signed the first ''Ivy Group Agreement'', which set academic, financial, and athletic standards for the [[American football|football]] teams.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ivyleague.com/sports/2017/7/28/history-timeline-index.aspx|title=A History of Tradition|website=ivyleague.com|access-date=July 28, 2023|archive-date=July 28, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230728001700/https://ivyleague.com/sports/2017/7/28/history-timeline-index.aspx|url-status=live}}</ref> The principles established reiterated those put forward in the Harvard-Yale-Princeton presidents' Agreement of 1916. The Ivy Group Agreement established the core tenet that an applicant's ability to play on a team would not influence admissions decisions:

{{blockquote|The members of the Group reaffirm their prohibition of athletic scholarships. Athletes shall be admitted as students and awarded financial aid only on the basis of the same academic standards and economic need as are applied to all other students.<ref>{{cite news|last=Gwertzman |first=Bernard M. |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=128992 |title=Ivy League: Formalizing the Fact  |work=The Harvard Crimson |date=October 13, 1956 |access-date=2011-01-30}}</ref>}}

In 1954, the presidents extended the Ivy Group Agreement to all intercollegiate sports, effective with the 1955–56 basketball season. This is generally reckoned as the formal formation of the Ivy League. As part of the transition, Brown, the only Ivy that had not joined the EIBL, did so for the 1954–55 season. A year later, the Ivy League absorbed the EIBL. The Ivy League claims the EIBL's history as its own. Through the EIBL, it is the oldest basketball conference in Division I.<ref>[https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/conferences/ivy/ "Ivy Group"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150118075519/http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/conferences/ivy/ |date=January 18, 2015}}, ''Sports-reference.com''</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/BK09.pdf|title=Official 2009 NCAA Men's Basketball Records Book – p. 221 "Division I Conference Alignment History"|access-date=February 13, 2018|archive-date=April 11, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160411094117/http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/BK09.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:Snow and Pforzheimer House, Harvard Campus, Cambridge, Massachusetts.JPG|thumb|[[Pforzheimer House]] (1901) at Harvard, originally part of Radcliffe College, which was fully integrated with Harvard in 1999]]
As late as the 1960s many of the Ivy League universities' undergraduate programs remained [[Open (sport)|open]] only to men, with Cornell the only one to have been coeducational from its founding (1865) and Columbia being the last (1983) to become coeducational. Before they became coeducational, many of the Ivy schools maintained extensive social ties with nearby [[Seven Sisters (colleges)|Seven Sisters]] [[women's college]]s, including weekend visits, dances and parties inviting Ivy and Seven Sisters students to mingle. This was the case not only at [[Barnard College]] and [[Radcliffe College]], which are adjacent to Columbia and Harvard, but at more distant institutions as well. The movie ''[[Animal House]]'' includes a satiric version of the formerly common visits by Dartmouth men to Massachusetts to meet [[Smith College|Smith]] and [[Mount Holyoke College|Mount Holyoke]] women, a drive of more than two hours. As noted by Irene Harwarth, Mindi Maline, and Elizabeth DeBra, "The '[[Seven Sisters (colleges)|Seven Sisters']] was the name given to Barnard, Smith, Mount Holyoke, [[Vassar College|Vassar]], [[Bryn Mawr College|Bryn Mawr]], [[Wellesley College|Wellesley]], and Radcliffe, because of their parallel to the Ivy League men's colleges."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/PLLI/webreprt.html |title=Archived: Women's Colleges in the United States: History, Issues, and Challenges |publisher=Ed.gov |access-date=January 30, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050204110037/http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/PLLI/webreprt.html |archive-date=February 4, 2005 }}</ref>

In 1982 the Ivy League considered adding two members, with Army, Navy, and [[Northwestern University|Northwestern]] as the most likely candidates; if it had done so, the league could probably have avoided being moved into the recently created Division I-AA (now Division I FCS) for football.<ref name="white19820110">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/10/sports/ivy-league-considers-adding-2-schools.html | title=Ivy League Considers Adding 2 Schools | work=The New York Times | date=January 1, 1982 | access-date=September 18, 2013 | last=White | first=Gordon S. Jr. | archive-date=December 20, 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220141905/http://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/10/sports/ivy-league-considers-adding-2-schools.html | url-status=live }}</ref> In 1983, following the admission of women to Columbia College, Columbia University and Barnard College entered into an athletic consortium agreement by which students from both schools compete together on Columbia University women's athletic teams, which replaced the women's teams previously sponsored by Barnard.[[File:Yale Varsity.jpg|thumb|Yale [[rowing (sport)|rowing]] team in the annual [[Harvard–Yale Regatta]], 2007]]When Army and Navy departed the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League in 1992, nearly all intercollegiate competition involving the eight schools became united under the Ivy League banner. The major exception is hockey, with the Ivies that sponsor hockey—all except Penn and Columbia—members of ECAC Hockey. Wrestling was a second exception through the 2023-24 academic calendar; up until that point the Ivies that sponsor wrestling—all except Dartmouth and Yale— were members of the [[Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Six Ivy League schools leaving EIWA to form own league in 2024-25 |url=https://ctwrestling.com/2023/12/six-ivy-league-schools-leaving-eiwa-to-form-own-league-in-2024-25/7734/ |access-date=26 June 2024 |publisher=Connecticut Wrestling Online |date=19 December 2023 |archive-date=June 26, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240626225821/https://ctwrestling.com/2023/12/six-ivy-league-schools-leaving-eiwa-to-form-own-league-in-2024-25/7734/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Ivy League was the first athletic conference to respond to the [[COVID-19 pandemic in the United States|COVID-19 pandemic]] by shutting down all athletic competition in March 2020, leaving many Spring schedules unfinished.<ref name="Higgins">{{cite news |last1=Higgins |first1=Laine |title=The Ivy League Is Still on the Sidelines. Wealthy Alumni Are Not Happy. |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ivy-league-is-still-on-the-sidelines-wealthy-alumni-are-not-happy-11613397614 |access-date=19 February 2021 |work=The Wall Street Journal |date=19 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210219170033/https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ivy-league-is-still-on-the-sidelines-wealthy-alumni-are-not-happy-11613397614?page=1 |archive-date=19 February 2021}}</ref> The Fall 2020 schedule was canceled in July, and winter sports were canceled before Thanksgiving.<ref name="Higgins" /> Of the 357 men's basketball teams in [[NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament|Division I]], only ten did not play; the Ivy League made up eight of those ten.<ref name="Higgins" /> By giving up its automatic qualifying bid to [[March madness|March Madness]], the Ivy League forfeited at least $280,000 in NCAA basketball funds.<ref name="Higgins" /> As a consequence of the pandemic, an unprecedented number of student athletes in the Ivy League either transferred to other schools, or temporarily unenrolled in hopes of maintaining their eligibility to play post-pandemic.<ref name="Higgins" /> Some Ivy alumni expressed displeasure with the League's position.<ref name="Higgins" /> In February 2021 it was reported that Yale declined a multi-million dollar offer from alum [[Joseph Tsai]] to create a sequestered "bubble" for the lacrosse team.<ref name="Higgins" /> The league announced in a May 2021 joint statement that "regular athletic competition" would resume "across all sports" in fall 2021.<ref name="GoLocalProv20210504">{{cite news |title=Ivy League Planning to Return to Regular Athletic Competition in Fall |url=https://www.golocalprov.com/sports/new-ivy-league-planning-to-return-to-regular-athletic-competition-in-fall |access-date=5 May 2021 |publisher=GoLocal Prov |date=4 May 2021 |archive-date=May 7, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210507121747/https://www.golocalprov.com/sports/new-ivy-league-planning-to-return-to-regular-athletic-competition-in-fall |url-status=live }}</ref>

Following the [[Black Lives Matter]] protests in 2020, the Ivy League Conference committed itself to uphold "diversity, equity, and inclusion," to combat racism and homophobia. At Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton there are Black Student Athlete groups and other [[affinity group]]s that are dedicated to ensuring their organizations are committed to anti-racism and anti-homophobia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Diversity, Equity and Inclusion |url=https://ivyleague.com/sports/2021/2/24/general-untitled-sportfile.aspx |access-date=2022-12-15 |website=ivyleague.com |language=en |archive-date=December 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221216142648/https://ivyleague.com/sports/2021/2/24/general-untitled-sportfile.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2023, two former Brown University basketball players sued the Ivy League alleging that by denying athletic scholarships, the 1954 "Ivy League Agreement" is anticompetititive and violates antitrust laws.<ref name="BDH20230309" /><ref name="AP20230308" /> The lawsuit claims that the agreement constitutes price-fixing in violation of the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]] of 1890, and in effect raises the cost of Ivy League education for student athletes.<ref name="BDH20230309">{{cite news |last1=Vaz |first1=Julia |title=Brown students sue Ivy League over athletic scholarship policy |url=https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2023/03/brown-students-sue-ivy-league-over-athletic-scholarship-policy |access-date=1 April 2023 |publisher=Brown Daily Herald |date=9 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230330133458/https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2023/03/brown-students-sue-ivy-league-over-athletic-scholarship-policy |archive-date=30 March 2023}}</ref><ref name="AP20230308">{{cite news |last1=Eaton-Robb |first1=Pat |title=Athletes sue Ivy League over its no-scholarship policy |url=https://apnews.com/article/ivy-league-lawsuit-athletes-brown-scholarship-771b34fa36ea06f6109435102d939299 |access-date=1 April 2023 |work=Associated Press News |date=8 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230311083335/https://apnews.com/article/ivy-league-lawsuit-athletes-brown-scholarship-771b34fa36ea06f6109435102d939299 |archive-date=11 March 2023}}</ref>