Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

June 28, 1978

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke was a major Supreme Court case that helped decide limitations on affirmative action, to make sure that providing greater opportunities for minorities did not come at the expense of the rights of the majority; affirmative action became just as unfair as before if it led to reverse discrimination.

The case involved the Univ. of California Medical School, which had two separate admissions pools, one for standard applicants, and another for minority and economically disadvantaged students. The school reserved 16 of its 100 places for this latter group.

Allan Bakke, a Caucasian applicant, was rejected from the medical program two times, although there were minority applicants admitted with significantly lower scores than his. Bakke maintained that judging him on the basis of his race was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court ruled that while race was a legitimate factor in school admissions, the use of such inflexible quotas as the medical school had set aside was not. The Supreme Court, however, was split 5–4 in its decision on the Bakke case. Although there was no straightforward majority view on using race as a factor in general, the majority agreed that the UC admissions program was unconstitutional because it disqualified applicants on the basis of race. Likewise, the same 5-4 split agreed that UC would be required to admit Bakke.