Supreme Court Case Regents Of The University Of California V. Allan Bakke

The U.S. Supreme Court Case Regents of the University of California v. Allan Bakke was officially decided June 28, 1978. The case addressed the issue of use of affirmative action in university admissions processes. Affirmative action, also referred to as positive discrimination, was a result of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and was intended to ensure equal entry to educational institutions or employment entities to certain groups that “have historically suffered invidious discrimination” (Janda et al., 477). However, sometimes this method causes discrimination of other groups, through establishment of racial quotas. University of California employed the process of affirmative action and instituted racial quotas in its admissions

He was denied then and again in 1974. This second rejection lead him to file a suit against the school for discrimination and violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Under the special admissions program, candidates who applied to UC Davis Medical School had the opportunity to select if they considered themselves members of a “minority group,” which included American Indians, African Americans, Asians, and Chicanos, or “economically and/or educationally disadvantaged,” according to Cornell Law. Candidates who fell under this “special admissions” title did not have to meet certain typical admissions requirements, namely a grade point average above a 2.5 and a comparison against general applicants (Cornell Law). General admissions requirements gave applicants a scored based on a compilation of GPA, science GPA, MCAT score, admission interview, letter of recommendation, and extracurricular activities, and although Bakke had a score of 468 out of 500 during his first application and a 549 out of 600 during the second, he was denied

The California Supreme Court ruled in agreement with Bakke that the quota system was unconstitutional, through interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause: “no applicant may be rejected because of his race, in favor of another who is less qualified, as measured by standards applied without regard to race” (US Const.). UC Davis later appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, who officially published their decision in 1978: 5-4. The Supreme Court ruled that UC Davis discontinue its racial quota program, but also approved of affirmative action in some cases “in education that use race as a plus factor” (Janda et al., 480). The Supreme Court published 6 opinions with Justice Powell’s being the controlling opinion. The two main points of Justice Powell’s opinion were that although achieving a diverse student body is a valid reason to justify use of race in admissions decisions, the special admission program at UC Davis was unnecessary to achieve that goal and that Allen Bakke must be admitted to the UC Davis Medical School because the university could not prove he would have been denied admission without existence of the special admissions program (Cornell