What did the Supreme Court say about affirmative action in the Bakke decision?

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke is a 1978 Supreme Court case which held that a university’s admissions criteria which used race as a definite and exclusive basis for an admission decision violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Find full opinion here.

In the case, Bakke was a white male who applied to medical school at the University California at Davis. Although his admissions score was well above that of the average admittee and the school had open slots when he applied, his application was rejected because of the school’s racial quota system. Previously, the school implemented a quota system where white applicants could only compete for 84 out of 100 spots, and the remaining 16 were reserved for racial minorities. Bakke sued the school, arguing that the clear-cut racial quota system was unconstitutional and a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Court held that these admission criteria violated the Equal Protection Clause and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court blended the analysis of the two, finding that a violation of the Equal Protection Clause is discrimination, which the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits. In this case, the court applied strict scrutiny, reasoning that the Equal Protection Clause requires that a government have a compelling interest with narrowly tailored means to blatantly base their actions on race alone, as was the case here. In so reasoning, the court extends the heightened scrutiny on race discrimination to all races and does not limit it to the protection of racial minorities. The medical school argued that their racial quota system served a compelling government interest by remedying the traditional underrepresentation of minorities in the medical profession and that the diversity in the classroom enhances the free exchange of ideas. The Court rejected the University’s arguments though, finding that there are other ways to achieve representation of traditionally underrepresented groups and classroom diversity without a blatant racial quota system. That is, the Court left the door open for race as a consideration among many in admissions. But the Court ruled that a quota system which excludes candidates because of their race alone is racial discrimination and that the University did not have a compelling reason with reasonably tailored means to overcome the constitutional standard of strict scrutiny.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will take up the issue of affirmative action again Monday — the second time in six years — but with the conservative majority now generally expected to end the use of race in higher education admissions.

WATCH: What’s at stake in the Supreme Court affirmative action cases

That would be a major shift for the court, which first ruled in favor of affirmative action policies in admissions in 1978. The earlier cases on affirmation action are each known by a single name: Bakke, Grutter, Gratz and Fisher.

During arguments Monday in cases involving North Carolina and Harvard, those names may be used as shorthand for the cases they represent. But real people are behind them.

A look at what they have done since the Supreme Court made their names synonymous with the issue of race in higher education:

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 1978

Allan Bakke was in his 30s when he applied to the medical school at the University of California, Davis. Rejected twice, Bakke sued. He said the school’s decision to set aside 16 seats for minority students in a class of 100 discriminated against him as a white man. The Supreme Court agreed and ordered him admitted. But the court allowed the use of race as a factor in admission if it was part of an overall evaluation of an applicant. Bakke graduated in 1982 and worked for years as an anesthesiologist in Minnesota. He has kept out of the spotlight since his case.

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Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003

Barbara Grutter was Michigan resident who applied to the University of Michigan Law School in 1996. Grutter, who is white, had a 3.8 grade point average but was rejected. She sued for discrimination, claiming the school’s policies gave certain minority students a significantly greater chance of admission. The Supreme Court said in a 5-4 decision that the law school’s admissions policy, which considered race as one factor in admissions, was not illegal. The decision allowed the continued use of race in admissions.

The Bollinger in the case was Lee Bollinger, who was sued in his capacity as the university’s then-president. Bollinger, now Columbia University’s president, told reporters recently that he is “worried about the outcome” of the current cases.

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Gratz v. Bollinger, 2003

The companion case to Grutter’s involved Jennifer Gratz, a white woman denied undergraduate admission to Michigan. Unlike Grutter, Gratz won her case. The Supreme Court agreed that the school’s undergraduate admissions system was flawed because it relied too heavily on race.

Frustrated that affirmative action survived anyway, Gratz was instrumental in Michigan’s passage of Proposal 2, which ended race-based preferences in state university admissions. The ban survived its own trip to the Supreme Court. Gratz went on to open a microbrewery in Florida with her husband.

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Fisher v. University of Texas, 2013 and 2016

Abigail Fisher is Supreme Court famous twice over. Fisher, who is white, sued after being rejected in 2008 from the University of Texas at Austin. A cello player who also participated in math competitions and did volunteer work, she graduated just shy of the top 10% of her class. She argued the university’s policy discriminated against her because of race, in violation of the Constitution.

Her first Supreme Court case was inconclusive. Three years later, when her case returned to the court, the justices in a narrow ruling upheld the school’s use of affirmative action. Only seven justices ruled in the case, however, because Justice Antonin Scalia had died and Justice Elena Kagan was recused.

Fisher, who has called herself an “introverted person,” graduated from Louisiana State University in 2012 and worked in finance, but she hasn’t given up on the affirmative action issue. Now in her 30s she’s one of the leaders of Students for Fair Admissions, the group that brought the UNC and Harvard cases to the high court. The group’s head is Edward Blum, a former stockbroker who also financially backed Fisher’s original case and other race-based Supreme Court cases.

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