In March 1955, MIT hosted the three-day National Conference on Selectivity and Discrimination in American Universities to discuss issues of racial discrimination in higher education. The conference was organized by Reginald Griffith '55 and Eldon Reilley '55, black and white students, respectively. Historian John Hope Franklin delivered the keynote entitled "The Problems of Race in America". 

The Tech student newspaper ran a special Discrimination Conference Issue on April 5, 1955 covering the event, which was quite likely the first of its kind held anywhere in the United States at the time.