Mock Trial: Board of Regents v Bakke

This Court Case dealt with quotas at public state colleges.

On June 28, 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Board of Regents v Bakke. This ruling banned quotas on race but allowed race to be a factor to achieve "diversity".

In 1973, Allan Bakke applied to University of California Medical School but was denied. The following year, he applied again and once again was denied. Bakke was a white male who during his first application was 33 years old. He served in Vietnam and excelled in his studies including having a 3,46 GPA and receiving high test scores in comparison to those in the minority. But the University of California reserved 16 percent of its incoming class for minorities thus to not discriminating against those who were in oppression allowing the other 84 percent for anyone.

In 1964, Bakke sued the school on the basis that he was "reversed discriminated". This term comes from the fact that minorities, mostly specifically, African American were given more opportunities then previous which decreased the chances of being white. Thus Bakke challenged the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1978, the lower court ruled that the University had discriminated against Bakke and he should be admitted into school. That same year, the Board appealed the case to the Supreme Court.

In their ruling, the Supreme Court was split 4-4 and the deciding judge was Justice Lewis Powell, who did not join on one side but instead on both sides. Thus this case did not really rule in the favor of one party, but instead had a two part ruling which it benefited both parties. The ruling that benefited Bakke was that the Court banned admission quotas based on race; therefore, a public college could not reserved a certain amount of seats for a specific race. In favor of the Board, public schools were allowed to have race as a deciding factor on whether to accept a student or not in order to obtain diversity on their campus.

This linked offers more information about the court case:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Bakke-decision