Regents of U of C v. Bakke PDF

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Professor Denison Case Brief...

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Regents of University of California v. Bakke 438 US 265 (1978) Case Facts: ● Allan Bakke, a thirty-five-year-old white man, had applied for admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis twice and been rejected both times. ● The university had an affirmative action program that reserved sixteen places in each entering class of one hundred for "qualified" minorities ● Bakke had a better college GPA and better test scores than any of the minority students admitted in the two years his applications were rejected. ● Bakke, first in the California courts, then in the Supreme Court, that he was excluded from admission solely on the basis of race. Central Issues: Does the University of California Medical School’s affirmative action policy violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Answer and Rationale: No and yes. This case divided the Court, and there was no single majority opinion. ● Four justices agreed with Bakke that the university’s affirmative-action strategy violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it put a cap on the number of white students who could be admitted. ● Four other justices argued that the college’s quota system was permissible under both Title VI and the Fourteenth Amendment. ● Justice Powell was the deciding opinion and he agreed that the University’s policy was unconstitutional, and ordered them to admit Bakke. However, his opinion was still split down the middle. ● Powell concluded that Universities could use race as one of several factors in admissions, but only for the educational purposes of diversity. ● Powell also concluded that Universities could not use quotas as employed at University of California because they violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by excluding whites from 16 out of 100 spots solely by virtue of their race. Principles of Law: ● The University’s race-based admissions program is constitutional under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ● The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment permits race to be one factor, among many, in an admissions program. ● Quota systems based on race are unconstitutional because they violate the The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Contextualization: The ruling in this case prohibited universities’ use of racial "quotas" in its admissions process. This case changed the affirmative action debate and shifted the conversation about how the Equal Protection Clause should be understood in modern times by emphasizing individual rights, rather than just those of minorities. Additionally, the rationale in this case relies on the idea that promoting diversity is a compelling interest of the government, a factor that may play an important role in future Supreme Court decisions....