Bakke, the U. Supreme Court invalidated the admissions plan of the medical school at the University of California, Davis. The plan reserved sixteen of places in each year's entering class for racial minorities. The ruling generally has been interpreted to mean that schools cannot use quotas but can practice affirmative action. The Bakke case became almost a household word before the decision was reached. In the public's view, the case would go a long way toward symbolically setting the tone and determining the speed of affirmative action in American society.
In addition, it would determine the validity of many professional schools' admissions plans and, therefore, the composition of these professional schools' classes in the future. Surprisingly, despite its status as one of the most celebrated cases in many years, the actual impact of Bakke is unknown.
Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell was on the fence in The Court had before it the case of a year-old white man, Allan Bakke, who had twice been denied admission to the medical school at the University of California at Davis. That shift may prove consequential as the use of race-conscious admissions at Harvard University goes on trial starting Monday. Read: Why the Ivy League needs to admit more students. The Equal Protection Clause is a short but critical line in the Fourteenth Amendment that states that Americans in similar circumstances should be treated equally under the law.
He argued that the quota system at UC Davis infringed upon his Fourteenth Amendment rights and that the university was in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of , which bars institutions that receive federal funds from discriminating on the basis of race—a lower hurdle toward receiving a favorable ruling than his Fourteenth Amendment argument. The Court also ruled, however, that the state "has a legitimate and substantial interest in An admissions department may then attempt to "redress" these findings of past discrimination by considering an applicant's race as a "plus" factor among many in its admissions decisions.
Such a race-conscious consideration, however, may only be one of many factors used in assessing each applicant, and the race of each applicant may never be a preclusive factor in granting admission. Regents of University of California v. Bakke established a pragmatic means of reconciling well-intentioned quota and affirmative action programs with the Constitution's zealous protection of equality.
In sum, racial quotas are always unconstitutional, but affirmative action programs may be constitutional if race is considered as one of many admission factors and used to remedy past findings of discrimination and to promote diversity. In the 30 years since this ruling, public and private universities have crafted affirmative action programs consistent with Bakke's requirements. In Grutter v. Bollinger , for example, the Supreme Court reaffirmed Bakke's basic approach and ruled that University of Michigan Law School's policy of giving significant but non-determinative weight to its applicants' race was "neutral" enough, and Michigan's interest in a diverse student body was "compelling" enough, to meet constitutionally standards of equality.
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