text: The school's selection of students broadened in the 1960s and 70s. Following a 1968 decision upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered the racial desegregation of Girard College, Milton Hershey School admitted its first non-white student. School official James E. Bobb, however, stated that the decision to admit racial minorities was unrelated to the ruling. In 1976, the school expanded its definition of orphanhood to include "social orphans", those with single or divorced parents. In November of that year, the school successfully petitioned the Dauphin County Court on allowing girls based on their charter. The first eight girls arrived in March 1977. Female admission was gradual, first restricted to those between kindergarten and fifth grade, then in the summer of 1977 to sixth through eighth grade, and finally to all grade divisions in the summer of 1978. In October 1977, approximately 1100 boys and 60 girls were enrolled in the school; by September 1978, female students made up 10% of the 1300 students.
  Cyndi Jacobsen wrote in 1989 in The Sentinel that "students chafe under the rules, the lack of privacy and individuality, and the anachronistic dairy barns ... [b]ut graduates tend to look back at their experience as a survival test". She said that house parents varied widely in their treatment, with some "rigid and authoritarian" and others "warm and affirming." Later that year, the school's longtime tradition of requiring all grade 9–12 students to milk cows, twice daily, was rescinded, with strong approval from students and the board. Director of secondary education John Storm justified the change, stating that "the school revolved around the milking program, when in fact we wanted it to revolve around educational opportunities".
  In 2002, the school had about 1,500 students; over the next two decades, the school grew to about 2,000 students.