In 1973, Allan Bakke, a 33-year-old white male, applied to 12 medical schools. He had been a National Merit Scholar in high school and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a GPA of 3.51. Bakke had served in Vietnam. After college, he and went on to work as an engineer at NASA. Bakke said that his interest in medicine began while serving in Vietnam and increased at NASA, as he had to consider the problems of space flight for the human body. All 12 schools rejected his application, including the University of California, Davis School of Medicine .
University of California, Davis School of Medicine
Bakke was adjudicated as a result of the 1970's admissions policies of the University of California, Davis School of Medicine.
At that time, UC Davis was employing an overt form of affirmative action. The school had 100 seats available to applicants, 16 of which were specifically for "Blacks," "Asians," "Chicanos," and "American Indians" under an affirmative action program. By siphoning off these 16 spaces, UC Davis created a separate admissions process for those 16 seats alone. Bakke sued the Regents of the University of California based on the fact that these 16 seats were off limits for him based on race and that minorities had been admitted to fill these 16 seats with lower academic scores than Bakke. He sued to have the state force UC Davis to admit him.
The Supreme Court heard the case in 1978. There were two main issues before the Court: 1) Was it illegal and unconstitutional under Section VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for Bakke's to be excluded from consideration in UC Davis Medical School special admissions program for minorities? And 2) If Bakke's exclusion was unconstitutional, should UC Davis be required to admit him?
The strongest contention by the University of California in countering the law suit was the justification of affirmative action by the good of diversity in the classroom. UC Davis's admissions procedure was designed to increase diversity. UC Davis maintained that the program had originally been developed to 1) reduce the historic deficit of traditionally disfavored minorities in medical schools and the medical profession, 2) counter the effects of societal discrimination, 3) increase the number of physicians who will practice in under served communities, and 4) obtain the educational benefits that flow from a racially diverse student body.
Though fragmented and far from a unanimous decision, the Court ultimately held that affirmative action programs are constitutional. However,quota systems, such as that established by UC Davis, were unconstitutional. In other words, the state could enact programs that preference the applications of minority candidates in the name of campus diversity, but could not reserve a certain number of seats for minority applicants and use an entirely different admissions process.
Bakke is significant for its holding and for the role of the decision in the adjudication of affirmative action. Bakke was the first case the Supreme Court decided that referenced affirmative action policies in higher education. Further, the nuances and confusions surrounding the Bakke decision set the stage for decades of future adjudication over affirmative action. The Court did not establish a precise ruling, but rather opened the door for future debates.