California Vs Bakke Case Study

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)

The Supreme Court was asked to decide if the University of California (UC) can use racial quota as part of their admissions process and validate the UC’s use of “reverse discrimination” of a white applicant. The situation was like the following:
After Bakke twice got rejected from the University of California, Davis’ medical school, Bakke filed suit against the university. Supporting his position with data that included the grades and test scores of the accepted students of minority race and Bakke, who clearly had a better score than them, Bakke claimed that he has been “reversely discriminated” and was not protected by Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In conclusion, the Supreme Court decided …show more content…
There were six differing opinions in this case, and none of them had the majority support. Therefore, the plurality opinion was issued.

One included whether UC Davis should admit Bakke or not.

Five justices, who were Powell, Burger, Stewart, Rehnquist, and Stevens, agreed to admit Bakke. The other four justices--Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun--dissented from such decision; however, they joined with Powell that affirmative action should be permissible. In addition, all justices agreed that race still should be considered as part of an admission process. The five justices who agreed on admitting Bakke claimed based on Equal Protection Clause of 14th Amendment; they believed not admitting Bakke with outstanding qualifications compared to other accepted students of minority race is “reversely discriminating” Bakke and white applicants. The other four justices who dissented believed that affirmative action should make up for the past discrimination to the minorities and based their opinions on the history of discrimination against African-American as well as Equal Protection Clause of 14th Amendment, except with different interpretation.

#2. The ideology influenced the justices’ decisions for the most of the time. For

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