Minority-Admissions Policies: Before and After Bakke

MINORITY-ADMISSIONS POLICIES: BEFORE AND AFTER BAKKE

Minority-Admissions Policies

Many universities, graduate schools, and professional schools established special minority-admissions programs during the 1970s to assure equal opportunities to students who were either economically or educationally disadvantaged. Even in schools where special-admissions policies were not made public, many admissions officers reserved the right to select students who would provide for a diverse student body. These policies were examined by the Supreme Court near the end of the decade in the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke decision, and legal guidelines were established that in many ways upheld special consideration for minority applicants.

The University of California, Davis

When a new medical school opened at the Davis campus of the University of California system in 1968, the minority population of that state was 23 percent, yet no black, Mexican-American or Native American student was admitted into the entering class (three Asian students were admitted). After 1971, however, a special-admissions program set aside sixteen seats for students who could be considered "economically or educationally disadvantaged," and a check-off box was included on the admissions form for such students to identify themselves. Although race was not a stated consideration of the program, no white student was ever admitted under the policy. The policy began to change the makeup of the medical-school class: between 1970 and 1974, of 452 students admitted, 27 were black and 39 were Mexican-American. Without the special-admissions considerations, only one black student and six Mexican-Americans would have been accepted. Each applicant was assigned a benchmark score—a composite of his or her interview, grade-point ratio from undergraduate school, grade-point ratio of science courses, Medical Comprehensive Achievement Test scores, letters of recommendation, and personal back-ground. Each of the above criteria was rated on a scale. Allen Bakke, a white Vietnam veteran, applied in 1973, receiving a total score of 468 of a possible 500. No general-admissions applicant with a score under 470 was accepted in 1973, however. Bakke reapplied in 1974, this time receiving a score of 549 out of a possible 600. He was not admitted, even though in both years applicants with lower scores were accepted through the special-admissions policy. Bakke sued the university, claiming he had been denied admission on the basis of race, a practice which violated Article I of the California Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Bakke Decision

On 28 June 1978 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bakke, striking down the University of California, Davis, admissions policy. The decision affected admissions decisions nationwide. Even though Bakke was ordered admitted to Davis, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of special minority admissions, maintaining that only rigid quotas for minority admissions were illegal. The University of California, Davis, violated Supreme Court guidelines with the rigid number of sixteen places set aside for minorities, with no provisions for enlarging the overall number of students accepted. In the last two years of the decade many graduate and professional schools reconfigured their admissions policy to meet the Bakke guidelines. For example, Rutgers School of Law reserved 30 percent of their seats in 1979 admissions for disadvantaged students, both white and black. The prevailing rule for admissions officials was no inflexible quotas and no students barred from competing solely on the basis of race. The Supreme Court decision on Bakke's case was thus not a legal command to dismantle affirmative-action programs. Instead, it presented a green light for going ahead with more carefully conceived plans to encourage diversity without creating an uneven playing field.

Source:

John Sexton, "Minority Admissions Programs After Bakke," Harvard Educational Review, 49 (August 1979): 313-339.