Significance: This case was the first major test of affirmative action. It determined that racial quotas for university admissions were unconstitutional, but it also ruled that there were circumstances in which race might validly be considered for admissions purposes.
Background: In 1970 the medical school at the University of California at Davis established a special admissions process designed to make the student population more diverse. Of the 100 student positions available each year, 16 were to be reserved for students who identified themselves as members of a minority group. These students did not have to meet the same standards for grades and test scores as other students. In 1973 and 1974 Allan Bakke, a white male with good grades and test scores, was rejected for regular admission to the medical school, although students under the special program were admitted with significantly lower test scores. Bakke sued the state university system, claiming that by rejecting him in favor of minority students with lower scores, the university had violated his right to equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment. Bakke also claimed that the Davis program violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids racial or ethnic preferences in programs that receive federal funds.
Decision: This case was argued on October 12, 1977, and decided on June 28, 1978, by a vote of 5 to 4. Justice Lewis Powell spoke for the Court, which ruled that universities may consider race as one of many factors in deciding who may be admitted, but they could not establish fixed quotas.
Excerpt from the Opinion of the Court: “Physicians serve a heterogeneous population. An otherwise qualified medical student with a particular background—whether it be ethnic, geographic, culturally advantaged or disadvantaged—may bring to a professional school of medicine experiences, outlooks, and ideas that enrich the training of its student body and better equip its graduates to render with understanding their vital service to humanity. Ethnic diversity, however, is only one element in a range of factors a university properly may consider in attaining the goal of a heterogeneous student body. Although a university must have wide discretion in making the sensitive judgments as to who should be admitted, constitutional limitations protecting individual rights may not be disregarded.”
