Bakke Decision

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke was a controversial case challenging the legal grounding of affirmative action programs in college admissions. A difficult decision for the Justices, the Court decided that affirmative action in college admissions was constitutional, but that racial quotas like those used by the University of California at the time, were not.

bakke decision

After reaching the Supreme Court through a series of appeals, the Court determined that the university could use race to evaluate candidates, but could not admit students using a racial quota. In a split decision, the court ordered the school admit Bakke. Bakke lives in Minnesota and has never given an interview after the case was decided.

The Bakke decision wasn't the last time the Court decided cases regarding college admission policies. In Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, both decided in 2003, the Court again considered admissions practices, this time for the University of Michigan's undergraduate and law schools. In the former case, the Court ruled again that affirmative action policies were constitutional, while in the second case reaffirming the Court's assertion in Bakke that quota systems were unconstitutional.

The Bakke decision, delivered on June 28, falls considerably short of these expectations. Moreover, it leaves many questions unresolved about the limits on affirmative action for minorities disadvantaged by past discrimination. The decision is instructive, nonetheless, in suggesting what the key issue for the Court is likely to be in the near future. Above all, it is instructive in elaborating the view of equal opportunity in particular and of American society in general that is implicit in a constitutional justification of racial preferences.

A decade ago, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the admissions plan of the medical school at the University of California, Davis. The plan reserved sixteen of 100 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. No serious scientific study has attempted to determine if Bakke had a significant effect on the crucial path to upward mobility-- professional schools. Drs. Welch and Gruhl will attempt to remedy this gap by assessing the impact of the Bakke decision on minority enrollments in medical and law schools. They will assemble three data sets: (1) aggregate national data on minority enrollments in the first year classes of law and medical schools from 1964 to 1986; (2) time series data on individual medical and law schools; and (3) survey data from admissions officers. Multivariate and interrupted time series analyses will be used to test the general hypotheses that the Court's decision striking down quotas made a significant change in the admissions patterns of several institutions, but that the Court's policy allowing affirmative action made less of a visible change. Not only is this research important because it is the first empirical inquiry into the effects of the widely discussed and controversial Bakke case, but also the Bakke decision offers a relatively rare opportunity to examine systematically the impact of an important Court decision nationwide on both public and private officials. Often, judicial scholars are forced by circumstances to look at only a small portion of those agencies that implement the Court's decision (police departments or schools, for example). This study will examine every law and medical school affected by the decision and will be able to shed light on important theoretical questions about the role courts play as policy makers, the impact court decisions have on behavior nationwide, and how different types of organizations respond to a court decision.

Note: This memo was circulated while the Justices were considering the case.The decision in this case depends on whether you consider the action of [UCD Medical School] as admitting certain students or excluding certain other students.

Demonstrators will demand the reversal of the Bakke decision and that administrators defend and extend minority admission programs. The UC Regents office in Berkeley and the State College trustees office in Los Angeles were mentioned as places where rallies would take place.

Within about two months, he said, the court will decide whether or not to hear the case. If the case is taken, there will then be oral arguments. After oral arguments, it will take about another six months to reach a decision, he said.

Both parties appeal from the ensuing judgment -- Bakke from the portion of the judgment denying him admission, and the University from the determination that the special admission program is invalid and that Bakke is entitled to have his application considered without regard to his race or the race of any other applicant. Bakke renewed his application for admission subsequent to the judgment, but the University refused to evaluate his qualifications without regard to the special admission program. We transferred the cause directly here, prior to a decision by the Court of Appeal, because of the importance of the issues involved. (Cal. Const., art. VI, 12; rule 20, Cal. Rules of Court.)

The University suggests that this distinction is not apposite with respect to the school integration decisions because the effort to integrate schools discommodes nonminorities by requiring some to attend schools in neighborhoods other than their own. We cannot accept this as a valid analogy. Whatever the inconveniences and whatever the techniques employed to achieve integration, no child is totally deprived of an education because he cannot attend a neighborhood school, and all students, whether or not they are members of a minority race, are subject [18 Cal. 3d 47] to equivalent burdens. As the Supreme Court has said numerous times since Brown v. Board of Education (1954) 347 U.S. 483 [98 L. Ed. 873, 74 S. Ct. 686, 38 A.L.R.2d 1180], there is no right to a segregated education. The disadvantages suffered by a child who must attend school some distance from his home or is transferred to a school not of his qualitative choice cannot be equated with the absolute denial of a professional education, as occurred in the present case.

The dissent charges that the combined numerical rating of an applicant does not include all his qualifications because it does not contain one factor favorable to disadvantaged minority applicants, i.e., their race or ethnic background. This suggestion is based upon the theory of the dissent that minority status in and of itself constitutes a substantive qualification for medical study and that, therefore, the fact that the combined numerical rating of a minority applicant accepted for admission was lower than the rating of a white rejected for admission does not [18 Cal. 3d 48] mean that the minority applicant was less qualified than the white student. (Post, p. 82, fn. 11.) But this argument simply assumes the answer to the question at issue. Bakke claims that minority status is not a relevant consideration in determining whether an applicant is qualified for admission, and that admission decisions must be made without regard to the racial or ethnic background of a prospective student. To accept at the outset the premise that a minority applicant may be better qualified because of his race would foreclose consideration of the constitutional issue raised by the complaint.

But in some circumstances a more stringent standard is imposed. Classification by race is subject to strict scrutiny, at least where the classification results in detriment to a person because of his race. fn. 13 In the case of such a racial classification, not only must the purpose of the classification serve a "compelling state interest," but it must be demonstrated by rigid scrutiny that there are no reasonable ways to achieve the state's goals by means which impose a lesser limitation on the rights of the group disadvantaged by the classification. The burden in both respects is upon the government. (E.g., Dunn v. Blumstein (1972) 405 U.S. 330, 342-343 [31 L. Ed. 2d 274, 284, 92 S. Ct. 995]; Loving v. Virginia (1967) 388 U.S. 1, 11 [18 L. Ed. 2d 1010, 1017, 87 S. Ct. 1817]; McLaughlin v. Florida (1964) 379 U.S. 184, 192-193 [13 L. Ed. 2d 222, 228-229, 85 S. Ct. 283].) It has been more than three decades since any decision of the United States Supreme Court upheld a classification which resulted in detriment solely on the basis of race: Korematsu v. United States (1944) 323 U.S. 214 [89 L. Ed. 194, 65 S. Ct. 193], and Hirabayashi v. United States (1943) 320 U.S. 81 [87 L. Ed. 1774, 63 S. Ct. 1375], both of which were war-inspired cases that have been severely criticized subsequently. fn. 14 [18 Cal. 3d 50]

Although there are no decisions of the United States Supreme Court directly in point, recent decisions of the high court demonstrate a marked reluctance to apply different standards to determine the rights of minorities and members of the majority. Thus, in McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co. (1976) 427 U.S. 273 [49 L. Ed. 2d 493 96 S. Ct. 2574], the court held that title VII and section 1981 of title 42 of the United States Code prohibit discrimination against all races on the same terms. Significantly, the court relied upon the broad language of these statutes, which protect "any individual" and "all persons" from discrimination. Indeed, in spite of the fact that section 1981 states that "all persons ... shall have the same right in every State ... to make and enforce contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens" (italics added), and that the "immediate impetus" for the statute upon which section 1981 was based "was the necessity for further relief of the Constitutionally emancipated former Negro slaves" the court found that the history of the measure justified the conclusion that it was intended to apply on equal terms to all races. fn. 18 [18 Cal. 3d 52] 041b061a72