As noted by Vassar Africana studies professor Joyce Bickerstaff, it was fairly common for light-skinned Black students to apply to colleges like Vassar. "There were large numbers of African Americans at that time and into the turn of the century [for whom passing] was a means to gain opportunities in education," Bickerstaff told The Vassar Alumnae/i Quarterly . "The country was under laws of segregation, and those families who had risen to that level of educational aspiration or economics were still excluded from most of the elite institutions."