The Bakke Case and the Future of 'Affirmative Action'

Abstract

Allan Bakke twice applied for admission to the medical school of the University of California at Davis, a state university, and was twice rejected. The medical school had reserved sixteen of the hundred places in the entering class for economically or educationally disadvantaged individuals from four racial-ethnic groups: Negro, Asian, American Indian, and Chicano (Mexican-American). A disadvantaged applicant who was not a member of one of these four racial-ethnic groups was not eligible for the special admissions program. Although members of the designated racial-ethnic groups could also compete for the remaining eighty-four places in the regular application process, within the special admissions program they were not evaluated in comparison with regular applicants but only in comparison with each other. Average test scores and other measures of academic promise of those admitted under the special program were far below those of other entrants and of many rejected applicants, including Bakke. Bakke sued the University of California, alleging that his exclusion from the entering class was the result of racial discrimination in violation of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,1 and the California Constitution. The California Supreme Court upheld Bakke's equal protection claim, holding that racial criteria could not be used to determine admission to a state educational institution.2 The court declined to consider his other grounds. The United States Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the California Supreme Court insofar as it ordered Bakke admitted to the Davis medical school, but reversed the judgment insofar as it enjoined the University from taking any account of race in its admissions decisions.3