Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

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1978 United States Supreme Court case

1978 United States Supreme Court case

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that involved a dispute over whether preferential treatment for minorities could reduce educational opportunities for whites without violating the Constitution. It upheld affirmative action , allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy . However, the court ruled that specific racial quotas , such as the 16 out of 100 seats set aside for minority students by the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine , were impermissible.

Although in _Brown v. Board of Education _ the Supreme Court had outlawed segregation in schools and had ordered school districts to take steps to ensure integration , the question of the legality of voluntary affirmative action programs initiated by universities remained unresolved. Proponents deemed such programs necessary to make up for past discrimination, while opponents believed they violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution . A previous case that the Supreme Court had taken in an attempt to address the issue, _DeFunis v. Odegaard _ (1974), had been dismissed on procedural grounds.

Allan P. Bakke (/ˈbɑːki/ ), an engineer and former Marine officer, sought admission to medical school but was rejected for admission partly because of his age — Bakke was in his early 30s while applying, which at least two institutions considered too old. After twice being rejected by the University of California, Davis , he brought suit in state court challenging the constitutionality of the school's affirmative-action program. The California Supreme Court struck down the program as violative of the rights of white applicants and ordered Bakke admitted. The U.S. Supreme Court accepted the case amid wide public attention.

The ruling on the case was highly fractured. The nine justices issued a total of six opinions. The judgment of the court was written by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. ; two different blocs of four justices joined various parts of Powell's opinion. Finding diversity in the classroom to be a compelling state interest , Powell opined that affirmative action in general was allowed under the Constitution and the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . Nevertheless, UC Davis's program went too far for a majority of justices; it was struck down and Bakke was admitted. The practical effect of Bakke was that most affirmative action programs continued without change. Questions about whether the Bakke case was merely a plurality opinion or binding precedent were addressed in 2003 when the court upheld Powell's position in the majority opinion of _Grutter v. Bollinger _. However, in 2023, the Supreme Court reversed that position, finding that affirmative action in student admissions impermissibly violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in _Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard _.

Background

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State of the law

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Main article: School integration in the United States

In _Brown v. Board of Education _ (1954), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled segregation by race in public schools to be unconstitutional. In the following fifteen years, the court issued landmark rulings in cases involving race and civil liberties, but left supervision of the desegregation of Southern schools mostly to lower courts.[1] Among other progressive legislation, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ,[2] Title VI of which forbids racial discrimination in any program or activity receiving federal funding.[3] By 1968, integration of public schools was well advanced. In that year, the Supreme Court revisited the issue of school desegregation in _Green v. County School Board _, ruling that it was not enough to eliminate racially discriminatory practices; state governments were under an obligation to actively work to desegregate schools.[4] [5] The school board in Green had allowed children to attend any school, but few chose to attend those dominated by another race.[6] In 1970, in _Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education _, the Supreme Court expanded the equitable powers of the district courts by upholding a district court order for busing of students as an appropriate remedy to desegregate a school system.[4] [7] [8]

Although public universities were integrated by court decree, selective colleges and graduate programs, and the professions which stemmed from them, remained almost all white. Many African Americans had attended inferior schools and were ill-prepared to compete in the admissions process. This was unsatisfactory to many activists of the late 1960s, who protested that given the African American's history of discrimination and poverty, some preference should be given to minorities. This became a commonly held liberal position, and large numbers of public and private universities began affirmative action programs.[9] Among these were the University of California, Davis School of Medicine (UC Davis or "the university"), which was founded in 1968 and had an all-white inaugural class. The faculty was concerned by this, and the school began a special admissions program "to compensate victims of unjust societal discrimination".[10] [11] The application form contained a question asking if the student wished to be considered disadvantaged, and, if so, these candidates were screened by a special committee, on which more than half the members were from minority groups.[12] Initially, the entering class was 50 students, and eight seats were put aside for minorities; when the class size doubled in 1971, there were 16 seats that were to be filled by candidates recommended by the special committee.[13] While nominally open to whites, no one of that race was admitted under the program, which was unusual in that a specific number of seats were to be filled by candidates through this program.[10]

The first case taken by the Supreme Court on the subject of the constitutionality of affirmative action in higher education was _DeFunis v. Odegaard _ (1974).[14] [15] Marco DeFunis, a white man, had twice been denied admission to the University of Washington School of Law . The law school maintained an affirmative-action program, and DeFunis had been given a higher rating by admissions office staff than some admitted minority ca

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