The Facts: The Medical School of University of California at Davis opened in 1968 with an entering class of fifty students, which included three Asian Americans but no African-Americans or native-Americans. Over the next two years, the faculty devised a special admissions program to increase the representation of the disadvantaged students in each class. In 1971, the size of the entering class was doubled and sixteen of the one hundred places were set aside for students admitted through the special admissions program. The requirements that a student had to fulfill in order to be selected for a program weren’t specified. The application form however did ask students to indicate whether they wished to be considered as ‘economically and/or educationally disadvantaged’.
Allan Bakke, a white male, applied for admission to the medical school in 1973 and then again in 1974 and was rejected in both years. Contending tat his grades and test scores were better than those of the average student admitted under the special admissions program, Bakke, sued the Regents of the University of California, claiming that the medical school admissions process had excluded him on the basis of race in violation of the California Constitution, the Equal protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights of 1964. The Civil Rights Act provides that no person shall be excluded from participating in any program receiving federal financial assistance on the ground of race or color.
The Issue: The issue in essence therefore was whether or Allan Bakke should be allowed admission in the medical school and whether or not the University had done something wrong by refusing admission to Bakke on the basis of the fact that it had reserved seats for others based on race.
The Decision: The Trial Court upheld Bakke’s claim on all three grounds and the California Supreme Court which took the case directly from the trail court, agreed that the medical school had acted in violation of the federal Constitution ordering that Bakke be admitted. The Courts’ decision consisted of six separate opinions, two of which were supported by four judges;. The swing vote was cast by Justice Powell and by a five to four majority, the Court ruled that state educational institutes could not set aside a specific number of slots for racial minorities for which only racial minorities could compete. Going in the opposite direction, the Court also ruled that even abent a finding of past discrimination, race may be given some consideration in the admissions process as part of the school’s exercise of the First Amendment. In other words the judgment concluded that race may be a factor but that it could not be the factor in the admissions criteria in state universities.
The Reasoning: The Bakke decision is best understood as two decisions (Hall and Patrick, 2006). One part of the court preferred to consider the statutory and not the constitutional basis of the issue while the second part of the court believed that the issue should be addressed as a constitutional matter and that it was possible to use race as a basis for helping groups that had suffered discrimination as long as there was an important public purpose in doing so. Race could be used as long a it did not put the weight of the government behind these policies that either stigmatized an individual and spread hatred and separation. Justice Powell, who cast the deciding vote stated that one the first question-whether the special admission program is invalid…there are five votes to affirm that the judgment invalidating the special program. Under this judgment, Justice Powell stated, Bakke should be admitted to the program. Powell wrote, “When classification denies an individual opportunities or benefits enjoyed by others solely because of his race or ethnic background, it must be regarded as suspect. These are serious problems of justice”, he continued, “connected with the idea of preference. Courts maybe asked to validate the burdens imposed upon individual members of a particular group in order to advance the group’s general interest. Nothing in the Constitutions supports the notion that individuals be asked to suffer otherwise impermissible burdens in order to enhance the social standing of ethnic groups”. in addressing the second issue, Powell said that some programs can legally take race into account which meant that race could be used as a basis upon which to rest state policy but such policies would be subject to the most intense review. Powell concluded that state’s goal of educational diversity was the only constitutionally permissible justification. Universities had the power to exercise affirmative freedom granted them under the First Amendment.
