Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)
Vocabulary
affirmative action: policy of encouraging or requiring
employers to recruit minorities and women in an
effort to make up for past discrimination
reverse discrimination: situation in which affirmative
action programs for minorities have negative and
allegedly unfair effects on members of the majority
equal protection clause: clause in the Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution that prohibits the
states from denying any person “the equal protection
of the laws”
Reviewing the Case
Allan Bakke had a degree in engineering and had
worked for several years in the aerospace industry
when, at the age of 34, he decided to go to medical
school. He applied to medical school at the
University of California at Davis. Bakke had a good
background and recommendations, a strong overall
grade point average, and good scores on the standard
medical school admissions test. Nevertheless, the
school rejected him in both 1973 and 1974.
Because the university hoped to encourage more
minority students to attend medical school, it had
devised an affirmative action plan that set up a
two-tier admissions policy for the medical school.
Of the 100 spaces in each first-year class, sixteen
were set aside for “disadvantaged” or “minority”
applicants. These included blacks, Native
Americans, and people of Asian or Mexican
ancestry. Applicants for the sixteen special slots did
not have to meet the same grade point average as the
other applicants, nor did they have to compete with
them in test scores.
The university regents (the school’s governing
body) had four goals for their affirmative action
policy: (1) to reduce the historic lack of minorities in
medical schools and in the medical profession; (2) to
counter the effect of racial and ethnic discrimination
in society; (3) to increase the number of physicians
expected to practice in communities that lacked
doctors; and (4) to obtain the educational benefits of
an ethnically diverse student body.
Bakke, a white male, scored significantly higher
on the admissions exams than the average of the
minority applicants, and his scores were competitive
with the other regular applicants. Still, he was denied
admission. Bakke sued in superior court, charging
the university with reverse discrimination. The
court found on Bakke’s behalf but refused to order
the university to admit him. Although he had won
the case on principle, he was still denied admission.
Bakke then went to the California Supreme
Court. He charged that the Davis admission plan was
a “quota system” and that it violated the California
constitution, the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment, and Title VI of the 1964
Civil Rights Act, which prohibits the denial of equal
educational opportunities. The California Supreme
Court ruled for Bakke and said that the university
could not give any consideration to an applicant’s
race in its decision to admit him or her. The
university regents, trying to save their affirmative
action program, appealed the case to the United
States Supreme Court.
Two issues were placed before the Court:
(1) Does the university’s admissions policy of
setting aside specific places for minorities violate
Bakke's rights under the equal protection clause?
(2) Is considering race in admissions always
unlawful?
The Supreme Court took a different position on
each issue. On the first issue, in a 5-4 vote, the
justices ruled that the special admissions program
was unacceptable because it discriminated against
one group of people in favor of another on the basis
of race. For the majority in this opinion, Justice
Lewis Powell wrote:
The special admissions program is undeniably a
classification based on race and ethnic
background. To the extent that there existed a
pool of at least minimally qualified minority
applicants to fill the 16 special admissions seats,
white applicants could compete only for 84 seats
in the entering class, rather than the 100 seats
open to minority applicants. Whether this
limitation is described as a quota or a goal, it is a
line drawn on the basis of race and ethnic
status....
... The [Fourteenth Amendment] guarantee of
equal protection cannot mean one thing when
applied to one individual and something else
when applied to a person of another color. If both
are not accorded the same protection, then it is
not equal.
Justice Powell, however, switched his position on
the second issue and voted with the four justices
who had dissented earlier. This created a new 5-4
majority. This majority, made up of, Justices Powell,
Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun,
concluded that it was possible for a school to have
an admissions policy in which racial or ethnic
background was considered as one element in
selecting students. This element, the justices stated,
would have to be weighed and balanced against
other characteristics. The present medical school
policy did not do so.
This part of the Supreme Court decision
acknowledged that the university’s goal of
overcoming the lack of minority students in the
medical school was important. The justices issued
this opinion:
The difficulty of the issue presented whether
Government may use race-conscious programs to
redress the continuing effects of past
discrimination... [has] resulted in many opinions,
no single one speaking for the Court. But this
should not and must not mask the central
meaning of today’s opinions: Government
may take race into account when it acts not to
demean or insult any racial group, but to remedy
disadvantages cast on minorities by past racial
prejudice.....
Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African
American to serve on the Court, disagreed with the
Court’s rejection of the university program but
agreed with the decision to allow race as one
criterion. In his separate opinion, Marshall defended
programs of affirmative action:
I agree with the judgment of the Court insofar as
it permits a university to consider the race of an
applicant in making admissions decisions. I do
not agree that petitioner’s [the university]
admissions program violates the Constitution. For
it must be remembered that, during most of the
past 200 years, the Constitution as interpreted by
this Court did not prohibit the most ingenious and
pervasive forms of discrimination against the
Negro. Now, when a state acts to remedy the
effects of the legacy of discrimination, I cannot
believe that this same Constitution stands as a
barrier.
As part of its decision, the Court agreed that
Bakke was entitled to admission to the medical
school (from which he graduated and became a
practicing physician). At the same time, it upheld the
legality and worth of the concept of affirmative
action.
Name___________________________________________
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)
Elements of the Case
Directions:
Fill in the appropriate information for each of the following elements of this case.
1. State the issue before the Supreme Court in this case.
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2. What facts of the case were presented to the Court?
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3. What was the decision of the Court? What was the rationale behind it?
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4. What was the effect of the decision?
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Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)
Evaluation of the Case
Directions:
Use your own judgment to evaluate the justices’ decision and state your opinion of that
decision.
1. The Court handed down a split decision on this policy. Do you agree with all, part, or none of that
decision? Explain your answer.
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2. Looking back at the school’s original special admissions policy, do you think it would have achieved
its goals of adding diversity to the student body and the medical profession? What criticisms do you
have of the policy? What would you have changed about it?
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3. Justice Marshall believed that years of discrimination made affirmative action programs a necessity.
Do you agree or disagree? As part of your answer, respond to this excerpt from his opinion in the
Bakke case:
“It is because of a legacy of unequal treatment that we now must permit the institutions of this society to give
consideration to race in making decisions about who will hold the positions of influence, affluence, and prestige in
America.”
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