Overview

Allan Bakke and the University of California Board of Regents were both involved in our Supreme Court Case, Bakke v. University of California Board of Regents. Bakke is a white male who applied to the medical school at the University of California at Davis through their regular admission process, and was rejected in both 1973 and 1974.

The medical school of the University of California at Davis admitted about 100 students a year in the early 1970s. They didn’t just have one admission process, however. They had a regular admissions program and a special admissions program, which was put in place to increase the number of minority students attending their University. If you were not a minority, you would have to apply through the regular admissions process, which requires a grade point average of 2.5 or higher to even be considered for acceptance. On the other hand, if you were a minority, you could apply to the medical school of the University through the special admissions program which did not require a grade point average of 2.5 to be accepted.

Allan Bakke had better scores than many of the minority applicants that were accepted into the medical school through the special admissions process, however, he was rejected both times that he applied, once in 1973 and once in 1974. He thought that this was extremely unfair, of course, and filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of Yolo County, California in 1974. His main goal was to get the Court to force The University of California to admit him to their medical school. To defend his argument, he said that their special admissions program violated the 14th Amendment.

Like I said above, the case first took place in the Superior Court of Yolo County, California in 1974. Agreeing with Bakke, the Superior Court of Yolo County, California ruled that the special admissions program “operated as a racial quota” and violated the federal and state constitutions and they said that race could not be factored in when applying. Bakke didn’t get exactly what he wanted though, because the Court did not force the University of California at Davis to admit him into their medical school.

Not being satisfied, both Bakke and the University of California appealed their case to the Supreme Court of California in 1976, where the special admissions program was also deemed unconstitutional. In addition, Bakke got what he wanted the most because the Supreme Court of California also ruled that the University of California at Davis had to admit Bakke into their medical school.

After all of that, it seems like things should be settled. But they weren’t. The Regents of the University of California at Davis took matters into their own hands and appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1978. The US Supreme Court also deemed the special admissions program unconstitutional. However, Justice Powel held that race could be used as a “plus” in the application process. What he meant by this was that even though the quota system is unconstitutional, putting your race on an application can and should be seen as a positive factor that may assist you in being admitted.

It may seem crazy that this case got appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court, but by doing this both sides were able to take away something positive. Bakke got admitted to medical school at the University of California at Davis, and even though the special admissions process was ruled unconstitutional in all three courts, the US Supreme Court is allowing race to be used as a “plus” on applications.