LEGAL CASE ANALYSIS

Case Analysis of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

Case Analysis of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

Facts

Allan Bakke

Allan Bakke, a thirty five year old white man, had twice applied for admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. He was rejected twice. Bakke filed a lawsuit when he came to know that candidates with lower qualifications, belonging to minorities were admitted to the university under a program that set aside seats for “disadvantaged” applicants.

Two injunctions

Admittance to School

The case discusses the admissions program that University of California Medical School at Davis meted out for an entering class of 100 students.

Race

The university reserved sixteen spaces for minority applicants admitted through a “special admissions program” (Ball, 2000), part of an affirmative action program undertaken by the university in an effort to reduce the unfair exclusion of minorities from the medical profession.

Grade Point Average (GPA)

Bakke's test scores and undergraduate GPA (3.46) were more than the college scores of a majority of the minority students (on an average 2.62 GPA) who were accepted by the school in the two years when Bakke's applications were rejected.

Issues

Laws the Supreme Court is to consider in the case Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke.

Equal protection connected with the 14 amendment.

Is it constitutional/against the 14th amendment based on the equal protection law.

Race could be used as a factor determining admission to the university The Davis

Medical School had no recorded history of racial discrimination in the school, but the faculty was concerned that, in the first class, there were no African American students. As a result, they decided to initiate a special admissions program to “compensate the victims of unjust societal discrimination.”

Injunction

Race

Justice John Paul Stevens, with Potter Stewart, Warren E. Burger and William Rehnquist, concluded that the ...