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Affirmative Action Case Study

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Affirmative action has been relevant in the United States since the Civil Rights Movement. President John F. Kennedy created Executive Order 10925, which created the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, to enforce equal opportunities for blacks or other historically oppressed minorities. Affirmative action programs spread from the work force into the admission process for colleges and universities across the United States. The University of Michigan had two Supreme Court cases challenging their undergraduate and law school admission policy. In Gratz v. Bollinger, an applicant to the undergraduate program, who was denied admission, challenged it because she felt she was denied admission because she did not belong to a minority. In Grutter …show more content…

Affirmative action started during the Civil Rights Movement, when President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925 that would create the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, “comprised of representatives from the major federal agencies and the public, and included a new nondiscrimination clause for all government contracts” (Sewell, 2004, p. 357). This committee would be federally funded for their projects, such as affirmative action, to make sure that all hiring and employment policies were free of discrimination. Eventually, these affirmative action practices were adopted by colleges and universities. While in its beginning, many people saw affirmative action as a form of reverse discrimination, but today it is one of the most debated topics because many people view it as unfair. This is because those jobs or positions may not be going to the most qualified candidate for that job or position, and some feel that they are being penalized just because of their …show more content…

Bollinger, Barbara Grutter challenged the University of Michigan Law School’s admission requirements when she was rejected from the law school. She claimed that she was only rejected because, “the law school used race ‘as a predominant factor, giving minority applicants a significantly greater chance of admission than students with similar credentials form disfavored racial groups’” (Epermanis, Franklin, Robinson, 2007, p. 34). The Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan claimed that Grutter would have been admitted if she would have been black or Hispanic. Epermanis, Franklin, and Robinson (2007) found

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SUMMARY In this landmark case Allan Bakke, a white applicant to the University of California, Davis Medical School, sued claiming his denial of admission on racial grounds was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The standing rule at the time was that race may be a factor in determining admission to educational institutions; however it cannot be the sole determining factor. FACTS OF THE CASE The University of California, Davis Medical School had been reserving 16 spots in each class out of 100 for disadvantaged minorities.

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In the court case Grutter v. Bollinger, it was ruled that that race had an appropriate but limited role in the admissions policies of public universities. Both Fisher and Michalewicz believed that the school was selecting more people that where of color over equally as eligible whites due to this court case. Fisher decided to bring this

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The case was Jennifer Gratz v Lee Bollinger. Jennifer Gratz, a caucasian women, applied to the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) and got denied. The University of Michigan’s admission was based on a 100 point, point system. The University automatically awarded 20 points to students who were a member a minority

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The second case filed against the University of Michigan is Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). The suit was filed by non-minority applicants who alleged the university for using race as the prevailing factor in admitting students and therefore violated the Equal Protection Clause, Title VI and Section 1981 (Green, 2004, p. 144). In their defense, the University of Michigan argued that the university seeks to ensure their ability to make unique contributions to the character of the student body by enrolling a “meaningful number” of underrepresented minority students (Green, 2004, p. 147). In contrast to the Gratz case, the district court did not follow Justice Powell’s rationale in the Bakke case and the district court ruled in favor of the plaintiff.

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Up and until this point in time, the court has generally ruled that promoting educational diversity is in fact a compelling state objective, but in today’s America, educational diversity has been established and is thriving. In this day and age, using race as a factor in college admissions is not needed. The Fourteenth amendment ensures the equal protection of the law to each and every citizen. We may not discriminate in order to promote

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Joshua Sisk AP Government Dr. Smith 5/13/2017 Citation- Grutter v Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 Facts- When a white woman, Barbara Grutter a resident of Michigan, applied for the University of Michigan law school, she was denied based on so called “soft variables”, such as race. Grutter sued the University of Michigan for racial discrimination. President of the university, Lee Bollinger, was elected the defendant of the case.

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Procedural history. Barbara Grutter (Plaintiff), a white resident from the state of Michigan, was denied admission to the University of Michigan Law School (Defendant). She sued the Law School in a federal district court, and alleged racial discrimination against her in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment on the basis of the Defendant’s consideration of race as a key factor in the school’s admissions process. The district court upheld the Plaintiff’s claim. The court of appeals reversed.

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In the case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Allan Bakke a white male was rejected from regular admissions into California University. He was rejected twice; meanwhile, minority students with lower grade point averages were being admitted into the same school under a special admissions program. After his second rejection, Allan Bakke was very upset, so he filed a law suit to the Superior Court of Yolo County, California. He wanted the chance to be admitted into medical school through the special admissions program. The University said that their admissions program was important and it ought to be kept in the University.

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The Supreme Court case of The Regents of the University of California versus Bakke questioned the use of affirmative action in applications. The medical school of the University of California at Davis reserved sixteen out of one hundred seats of every entering class for minorities (Blacks, Chicanos, Asians, and American Indians) (Banfield pg.82). Allan Bakke a white male in his mid-thirties was twice denied access to the University strictly based on quotas, although Bakke had MCAT scores and GPA higher than other minority applicants admitted (McBride par.3). Bakke would later sue The University of California on the basis that the school had violated the civil rights act of 1964.

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Grutter V. Bollinger Research Paper 2 Abstract Barbara Grutter (plaintiff) which is a resident of Michigan who was denied admissions into the University of Michigan Law School. Lee Bollinger (defendant) was president of the University of Michigan. Grutter filed this suit because the University had discriminated against the basis of race. Supreme Court ruled that the use of affirmative action in school admissions is constitutional if it treats race as some factor.

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The main precedent that has stuck with the court from Bakke to now Fisher is that a diverse student body is a compelling enough interest for a university to pursue. This goal is to be carried out in a narrowly tailored manner which the court has accepted as a race-conscious admissions program. The program is deemed constitutional on the basis that it only uses race as a plus factor in the admissions process. These programs, however, run in stark contrast to the provisions set forth in the Equal Protection Clause; in which the state is not allowed to treat individuals differently based on the category of race. The race-conscious admissions program albeit better than a pure quota system still uses race as a crucial factor.

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Many supporters of race-conscious admissions argue that without considering race as a factor, many groups of underrepresented minorities won’t have the chance to continue onto higher education because of their lack of resources, as compared to the wealthy and privileged white applicants. However, this is based on stereotypes. In “The Atlantic” article, “The Affirmative Action That Colleges Really Need”, the author states, “The current framework of race-based preferences…disproportionately helps upper-middle-class students of color, and pits working-class people of different races against one another…Research by the economist Raj Chetty shows that…Seventy-one percent of Black, Latino, and Native American students at Harvard come from college-educated homes with incomes above the national median; such students are in roughly the most advantaged fifth of families of their own race,” (Kahlenberg). What this shows is that in reality, there are families that come from underrepresented backgrounds who are still just as privileged because of their social class. Stereotypes create flaws in the system by giving minority students the boost they do not need instead of giving it to the lower class students that actually do, which includes minorities and the majorities alike.

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It wasn’t until 1972, Title IX was signed into law. The basis of this law was quote, “Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity”. To summarize, title IX was a comprehensive law that enabled women to apply for a position in any profession of their choosing. It also allowed them to major in any college/university field of study. With all of this at hand, Affirmative Action was certainly not without its cons as well as its

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Differentiating between spree killers and serial killers in an ongoing debate between criminologists (Montaldo 2019). Criminologists focus a lot on the psychological issues of spree and serial killers when studying. Serial killers differ from spree killers in many ways, this can include their motivations for killing and their behavior at the crime scenes (Morton 2023). When researching, you should look into past spree and serial murders, like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer who were serial killers and Charles Starkweather and William Cook who were spree killers. Serial killers are when somebody kills three or more victims but each victim is killed on separate occasions (Montaldo 2019).

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Support for Affirmative Action In 1955, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order prohibiting discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment in the federal government because of race, color, or national origin, laid the groundwork that evolved into something bigger and more controversial than anyone could imagine. Subsequently, in 1961, for the first time President John F. Kennedy issued an executive order that used the words “Affirmative Action”. This order marked the distinct departure point for policies designed solely to promote equal employment opportunities. Decades after the introduction of affirmative action in America, the affirmative action debate continues.

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