Who is allan bakke

Affirmative action is a policy in which an individual's color, race, sex, religion or national origin are taken into account to increase opportunities provided to an underrepresented part of society. Which Supreme Court decision upheld affirmative action?

Grutter v. Bollinger, U. What Supreme Court case dealt with reverse discrimination? Supreme Court case on affirmative action involving Allan Bakke, a white University of California medical school applicant. Where is affirmative action banned? This would eliminate "bilingual" classes in most cases. Main page Questions categories Philosophy and history Common philosophy Philosophy in education Philosophy and sociology Philosophy edu Students info Common articles Best philosophy topics.

Take a look at the similar writing assignments Essay Who was Allan Bakke? Get a writing assignment done or a free consulting with qualified academic writer. Read also What is a desert short answer? What is organizational globalization? What is general reference? How is Soundcore Liberty 2? What does being trans feel like? What do mean scores tell us? About one out of six applicants was then given an interview, following which he was rated on a scale of 1 to by each of the committee members five in and six in , his rating being based on the interviewers' summaries, his overall grade point average, his science courses grade point average, his Medical College Admissions Test MCAT scores, letters of recommendation, extracurricular activities, and other biographical data, all of which resulted in a total "benchmark score.

The committee chairman was responsible for placing names on the waiting list and had discretion to include persons with "special skills. If an applicant of a minority group was found to be "disadvantaged," he would be rated in a manner similar to the one employed by the general admissions committee. Special candidates, however, did not have to meet the 2. About one-fifth of the special applicants were invited for interviews in and , following which they were given benchmark scores, and the top choices were then given to the general admissions committee, which could reject special candidates for failure to meet course requirements or other specific deficiencies.

The special committee continued to recommend candidates until 16 special admission selections had been made. During a four-year period 63 minority students were admitted to Davis under the special program and 44 under the general program. No disadvantaged whites were admitted under the special program, though many applied. Respondent, a white male, applied to Davis in and , in both years being considered only under the general admissions program. Though he had a out of score in , he was rejected since no general applicants with scores less than were being accepted after respondent's application, which was filed late in the year, had been processed and completed.

At that time four special admission slots were still unfilled. In respondent applied early, and though he had a total score of out of , he was again rejected. In neither year was his name placed on the discretionary waiting list.

In both years special applicants were admitted with significantly lower scores than respondent's. Petitioner cross-claimed for a declaration that its special admissions program was lawful. The trial court found that the special program operated as a racial quota, because minority applicants in that program were rated only against one another, and 16 places in the class of were reserved for them.

Declaring that petitioner could not take race into account in making admissions decisions, the program was held to violate the Federal and State Constitutions and Title VI.

Respondent's admission was not ordered, however, for lack of proof that he would have been admitted but for the special program. The California Supreme Court, applying a strict-scrutiny standard, concluded that the special admissions program was not the least intrusive means of achieving the goals of the admittedly compelling state interests of integrating the medical profession and increasing the number of doctors willing to serve minority patients.

Without passing on the state constitutional or federal statutory grounds the court held that petitioner's special admissions program violated the Equal Protection Clause. Since petitioner could not satisfy its burden of demonstrating that respondent, absent the special program, would not have been admitted, the court ordered his admission to Davis. Held: The judgment below is affirmed insofar as it orders respondent's admission to Davis and invalidates petitioner's special admissions program, but is reversed insofar as it prohibits petitioner from taking race into account as a factor in its future admissions decisions.

Title VI proscribes only those racial classifications that would violate the Equal Protection Clause if employed by a State or its agencies.

Racial and ethnic classifications of any sort are inherently suspect and call for the most exacting judicial scrutiny. While the goal of achieving a diverse student body is sufficiently compelling to justify consideration of race in admissions decisions under some circumstances, petitioner's special admissions program, which forecloses consideration to persons like respondent, is unnecessary to the achievement of this compelling goal and therefore invalid under the Equal Protection Clause.

Since petitioner could not satisfy its burden of proving that respondent would not have been admitted even if there had been no special admissions program, he must be admitted. Racial classifications call for strict judicial scrutiny. Nonetheless, the purpose of overcoming substantial, chronic minority underrepresentation in the medical profession is sufficiently important to justify petitioner's remedial use of race.

Thus, the judgment below must be reversed in that it prohibits race from being used as a factor in university admissions. Justice REHNQUIST, being of the view that whether race can ever be a factor in an admissions policy is not an issue here; that Title VI applies; and that respondent was excluded from Davis in violation of Title VI, concurs in the Court's judgment insofar as it affirms the judgment of the court below ordering respondent admitted to Davis. Wade H. McCree, Jr. This case presents a challenge to the special admissions program of the petitioner, the Medical School of the University of California at Davis, which is designed to assure the admission of a specified number of students from certain minority groups.

The court enjoined petitioner from considering respondent's race or the race of any other applicant in making admissions decisions.

It refused, however, to order respondent's admission to the Medical School, holding that he had not carried his burden of proving that he would have been admitted but for the constitutional and statutory violations. The Supreme Court of California affirmed those portions of the trial court's judgment declaring the special admissions program unlawful and enjoining petitioner from considering the race of any applicant.

For the reasons stated in the following opinion, I believe that so much of the judgment of the California court as holds petitioner's special admissions program unlawful and directs that respondent be admitted to the Medical School must be affirmed. Post , at It must be remembered, however, that petitioner here cross-complained in the trial court for a declaratory judgment that its special program was constitutional and it lost. The trial court's judgment that the special pro ram was unlawful was affirmed by the California Supreme Court in an opinion which left no doubt that the reason for its holding was petitioner's use of race in consideration of any candidate's application.

Moreover, in explaining the scope of its holding, the court quite clearly stated that petitioner was prohibited from taking race into account in any way in making admissions decisions:. In short, the standards for admission employed by the University are not constitutionally infirm except to the extent that they are utilized in a racially discriminatory manner. Disadvantaged applicants of all races must be eligible for sympathetic consideration, and no applicant may be rejected because of his race, in favor of another who is less qualified, as measured by standards applied without regard to race.

We reiterate, in view of the dissent's misinterpretation, that we do not compel the University to utilize only 'the highest objective academic credentials' as the criterion for admission. This explicit statement makes it unreasonable to assume that the reach of the California court's judgment can be limited in the manner suggested by Mr. I also conclude for the reasons stated in the following opinion that the portion of the court's judgment enjoining petitioner from according any consideration to race in its admissions process must be reversed.

For reasons expressed in separate opinions, my Brothers Mr. The Medical School of the University of California at Davis opened in with an entering class of 50 students. In , the size of the entering class was increased to students, a level at which it remains. No admissions program for disadvantaged or minority students existed when the school opened, and the first class contained three Asians but no blacks, no Mexican-Americans, and no American Indians. Over the next two years, the faculty devised a special admissions program to increase the representation of "disadvantaged" students in each Medical School class.

Under the regular admissions procedure, a candidate could submit his application to the Medical School beginning in July of the year preceding the academic year for which admission was sought.

Record Because of the large number of applications, 2 the admissions committee screened each one to select candidates for further consideration. Candidates whose overall undergraduate grade point averages fell below 2. About one out of six applicants was invited for a personal interview.

Following the interviews, each candidate was rated on a scale of 1 to by his interviewers and four other members of the admissions committee. The rating embraced the interviewers' summaries, the candidate's overall grade point average, grade point average in science courses, scores on the Medical College Admissions Test MCAT , letters of recommendation, extracurricular activities, and other biographical data.

The ratings were added together to arrive at each candidate's "benchmark" score. Since five committee members rated each candidate in , a perfect score was ; in , six members rated each candidate, so that a perfect score was The full committee then reviewed the file and scores of each applicant and made offers of admission on a "rolling" basis.

They were not placed in strict numerical order; instead, the chairman had discretion to include persons with "special skills. The special admissions program operated with a separate committee, a majority of whom were members of minority groups. If these questions were answered affirmatively, the application was forwarded to the special admissions committee.

No formal definition of "disadvantaged" was ever produced, id. About one-fifth of the total number of special applicants were invited for interviews in and The special committee then presented its top choices to the general admissions committee.

The latter did not rate or compare the special candidates against the general applicants, id. The special committee continued to recommend special applicants until a number prescribed by faculty vote were admitted. While the overall class size was still 50, the prescribed number was 8; in and , when the class size had doubled to , the prescribed number of special admissions also doubled, to From the year of the increase in class size——through , the special program resulted in the admission of 21 black students, 30 Mexican-Americans, and 12 Asians, for a total of 63 minority students.

Over the same period, the regular admissions program produced 1 black, 6 Mexican-Americans, and 37 Asians, for a total of 44 minority students. Indeed, in , at least, the special committee explicitly considered only "disadvantaged" special applicants who were members of one of the designated minority groups. Allan Bakke is white male who applied to the Davis Medical School in both and In both years Bakke's application was considered under the general admissions program, and he received an interview.

His interview was with Dr. Theodore C. West, who considered Bakke "a very desirable applicant to [the] medical school. Despite a strong benchmark score of out of , Bakke was rejected. His application had come late in the year, and no applicants in the general admissions process with scores below were accepted after Bakke's application was completed. There were four special admissions slots unfilled at that time however, for which Bakke was not considered.

After his rejection, Bakke wrote to Dr. George H. Lowrey, Associate Dean and Chairman of the Admissions Committee, protesting that the special admissions program operated as a racial and ethnic quota. Bakke's application was completed early in the year. His student interviewer gave him an overall rating of 94, finding him "friendly, well tempered, conscientious and delightful to speak with. His faculty interviewer was, by coincidence, the same Dr. Lowrey to whom he had written in protest of the special admissions program.

Lowrey found Bakke "rather limited in his approach" to the problems of the medical profession and found disturbing Bakke's "very definite opinions which were based more on his personal viewpoints than upon a study of the total problem.

Lowrey gave Bakke the lowest of his six ratings, an 86; his total was out of Again, Bakke's application was rejected. In neither year did the chairman of the admissions committee, Dr. Lowrey, exercise his discretion to place Bakke on the waiting list. In both years, applicants were admitted under the special program with grade point averages, MCAT scores, and benchmark scores significantly lower than Bakke's. After the second rejection, Bakke filed the instant suit in the Superior Court of California.

He alleged that the Medical School's special admissions program operated to exclude him from the school on the basis of his race, in violation of his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment , 9 Art. The trial court found that the special program operated as a racial quota, because minority applicants in the special program were rated only against one another.

Record and 16 places in the class of were reserved for them. Declaring that the University could not take race into account in making admissions decisions, the trial court held the challenged program violative of the Federal Constitution, the State Constitution, and Title VI.

The court refused to order Bakke's admission, however, holding that he had failed to carry his burden of proving that he would have been admitted but for the existence of the special program.

Bakke appealed from the portion of the trial court judgment denying him admission, and the University appealed from the decision that its special admissions program was unlawful and the order enjoining it from considering race in the processing of applications.

The Supreme Court of California transferred the case directly from the trial court, "because of the importance of the issues involved. The California court accepted the findings of the trial court with respect to the University's program.

It then turned to the goals the University presented as justifying the special program. Although the court agreed that the goals of integrating the medical profession and increasing the number of physicians willing to serve members of minority groups were compelling state interests, id.

Without passing on the state constitutional or the federal statutory grounds cited in the trial court's judgment, the California court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required that "no applicant may be rejected because of his race, in favor of another who is less qualified, as measured by standards applied without regard to race.

Turning to Bakke's appeal, the court ruled that since Bakke had established that the University had discriminated against him on the basis of his race, the burden of proof shifted to the University to demonstrate that he would not have been admitted even in the absence of the special admissions program. V , see, e. Bowman Transportation Co. On this basis, the court initially ordered a remand for the purpose of determining whether, under the newly allocated burden of proof, Bakke would have been admitted to either the or the entering class in the absence of the special admissions program.

A to Application for Stay In its petition for rehearing below, however, the University conceded its inability to carry that burden. B to Application for Stay AA That order was stayed pending review in this Court.

We granted certiorari to consider the important constitutional issue. Rather, as had the California court, they focused exclusively upon the validity of the special admissions program under the Equal Protection Clause. Because it was possible, however, that a decision on Title VI might obviate resort to constitutional interpretation, see Ashwander v.

TVA, U. At the outset we face the question whether a right of action for private parties exists under Title VI. Respondent argues that there is a private right of action, invoking the test set forth in Cort v. Ash, U. He contends that the statute creates a federal right in his favor, that legislative history reveals an intent to permit private actions, 15 that such actions would further the remedial purposes of the statute, and that enforcement of federal rights under the Civil Rights Act generally is not relegated to the States.

In addition, he cites several lower court decisions which have recognized or assumed the existence of a private right of action. We find it unnecessary to resolve this question in the instant case. The question of respondent's right to bring an action under Title VI was neither argued nor decided in either of the courts below, and this Court has been hesitant to review questions not addressed below.

McGoldrick v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, U. See also Massachusetts v. Westcott, U. Louisiana, U. Singleton v. Wulff, U. We therefore do not address this difficult issue.

Similarly, we need not pass upon petitioner's claim that private plaintiffs under Title VI must exhaust administrative remedies. We assume, only for the purposes of this case, that respondent has a right of action under Title VI. See Lau v.

Nichols, U. The concept of "discrimination," like the phrase "equal protection of the laws," is susceptible of varying interpretations, for as Mr. Justice Holmes declared, "[a] word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.

Eisner, U. We must, therefore, seek whatever aid is available in determining the precise meaning of the statute before us.

Train v. American Trucking Assns. Examination of the voluminous legislative history of Title VI reveals a congressional intent to halt federal funding of entities that violate a prohibition of racial discrimination similar to that of the Constitution.

The problem confronting Congress was discrimination against Negro citizens at the hands of recipients of federal moneys. Indeed, the color blindness pronouncements cited in the margin at n. Over and over again, proponents of the bill detailed the plight of Negroes seeking equal treatment in such programs. In addressing that problem, supporters of Title VI repeatedly declared that the bill enacted constitutional principles.

For example, Representative Celler, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and floor manager of the legislation in the House, emphasized this in introducing the bill:. It would prevent abuse of food distribution programs whereby Negroes have been known to be denied food surplus supplies when white persons were given such food. It would assure Negroes the benefits now accorded only white students in programs of high[er] education financed by Federal funds.

It would, in short, assure the existing right to equal treatment in the enjoyment of Federal funds. It would not destroy any rights of private property or freedom of association. In the Senate, Senator Humphrey declared that the purpose of Title VI was "to insure that Federal funds are spent in accordance with the Constitution and the moral sense of the Nation.

Senator Ribicoff agreed that Title VI embraced the constitutional standard: "Basically, there is a constitutional restriction against discrimination in the use of federal funds; and title VI simply spells out the procedure to be used in enforcing that restriction.

Other Senators expressed similar views. Further evidence of the incorporation of a constitutional standard into Title VI appears in the repeated refusals of the legislation's supporters precisely to define the term "discrimination. For example, Senator Humphrey noted the relevance of the Constitution:. That purpose is to give fellow citizens—Negroes—the same rights and opportunities that white people take for granted. This is no more than what was preached by the prophets, and by Christ Himself.

It is no more than what our Constitution guarantees. In view of the clear legislative intent, Title VI must be held to proscribe only those racial classifications that would violate the Equal Protection Clause or the Fifth Amendment. Petitioner does not deny that decisions based on race or ethnic origin by faculties and administrations of state universities are reviewable under the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e. Gaines v. Canada, U. Board of Regents, U. Painter, U.

Oklahoma State Regents, U. For his part, respondent does not argue that all racial or ethnic classifications are per se invalid.

United States, U. Washington, U. Carey, U. The parties do disagree as to the level of judicial scrutiny to be applied to the special admissions program.

Petitioner argues that the court below erred in applying strict scrutiny, as this inexact term has been applied in our cases. That level of review, petitioner asserts, should be reserved for classifications that disadvantage "discrete and insular minorities. Bakke Which Supreme Court case ruled that racial quotas could not be used to reduce?

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke , U. What did Plessy argue? Ferguson, at the Louisiana Supreme Court, arguing that the segregation law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbids states from denying "to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," as well as the Thirteenth Amendment, which banned slavery.

What is the concept of separate but equal? The doctrine that racial segregation is constitutional as long as the facilities provided for blacks and whites are roughly equal. What did the Jim Crow laws do? Jim Crow laws and Jim Crow state constitutional provisions mandated the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains for whites and blacks.

The U. How did Plessy vs Ferguson impact society? Ferguson was important because it essentially established the constitutionality of racial segregation. As a controlling legal precedent, it prevented constitutional challenges to racial segregation for more than half a century until it was finally overturned by the U. Supreme Court in Brownv.