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Constitutional Law Supreme Court Case Summary

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Constitutional Law Supreme Court Case Summary
Dawn Slavinski 1/3/05
Constitutional Law Supreme Court Case Write-Up

Case: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1976)

Source: Internet http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=438&invol=265 http://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=129 http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/324/ Issue:

Did the University of California violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by practicing an affirmative action policy that resulted in the repeated rejection of Bakke's application for admission to its medical school?

Facts:

Allan Bakke, a thirty-eight year old white engineer, was twice denied admission to the medical school at the University of California at Davis. To ensure minority representation in the student body, the university has set aside sixteen seats for minority applicants (out of one hundred students), as part of the university's affirmative action program, in an effort to redress longstanding, unfair minority exclusions from the medical profession. Challenging the set-aside as a violation of his …show more content…
The remaining four justices held that the use of race as a criterion in admissions decisions in higher education was constitutionally permissible. Powell joined that opinion as well, contending that the use of race was permissible as one of several admission criteria. So, the Court managed to minimize white opposition to the goal of equality (by finding for Bakke) while extending gains for racial minorities through affirmative action. The nature of this split opinion created controversy over whether Powell's opinion was binding. However, in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger the Supreme Court affirmed Powell's
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