The Supreme Court and affirmative actions * Regents of the University of California V. Bakke (1978). University of California’s medical school in Davis reserved 16/100 places each year for minority groups. Allan Bakke, a white applicant, was rejected twice. In 5-4 decision, the court ruled that this constituted a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th
In the cases Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), the Supreme Court ruled that the use of Affirmative action in school admission is constitutional if it treats race as one factor among many, its purpose is to achieve a "diverse" class, and it does not substitute for individualized review of applicant, but is unconstitutional if it automatically increases an applicant's chances over others simply because of his or her race. The Grutter case involved a lawsuit against the admission process at the University of Michigan's Law School. The mission of the law school's intensely competitive admission process was to achieve "a mix of students with varying backgrounds and experiences who will respect and learn from one another." While test scores and undergraduate performance were the most important criteria in selecting applicants for admission, they were not determinative. The school also examined a host of subjective factors in making its admissions decisions, including the race and ethnicity of the candidates.
The Legislation Itself After Herman Marion Sweatt had gone through the state courts unsuccessfully, he and the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall took their case to the Supreme Court. Herman Marion Sweatt was denied admission to the state supported University of Texas Law School solely because he was black and state law forbade the admission of blacks to that particular law school. He was offered, but he refused, to be admitted to a separate law school, newly established by the state, just for blacks. The “black school” had just 5 professors and 23 students while the actual University of Texas Law School had 16 professors and 850 students. The defendant claimed that the legal education that was offered to the petitioner (Herman Marion Sweatt) was not substantially equal to that which he would receive if admitted to the University of Texas Law School, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required that he be allowed admittance to the state law school.
The Supreme Court, however, ruled that the more formulaic approach of the University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions program, which uses a point system that rates students and awards additional points to minorities, had to be modified. The undergraduate program, unlike the law schools, did not provide the individualized consideration of applicants necessary in previous Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action (Amara, 16-17). Because of the Supreme Court’s mixed emotions on this topic, unqualified students and job applicants are still being accepted over more qualified people but only because they are from a minority group. That is why affirmative action is a problem
At UC Davis there was a system of committees allowing entrance to medical school. There were two committees a regular one and a “special one”. The special one was made up of minorities and its intent was to allow people who had struggled financially or educationally a way into medical school without having to have the same GPA as the regular committee asked. One white applicant felt that he met the specifications of the “special” committee but continued to not be accepted. He brought this to court where the holding was found that affirmative action systems are constitutional but a system based on race is not constitutional.
The fourteenth amendment has been used to successfully used to fight against segregation and discrimination because while states have dominion over those peoples and those facilities within their confines they cannot discriminate against those people because those people are in large, part of the United States, and those in the United States have uninalienble rights granted to them by the Constitution that no state can take away. Martin Luther King’s nonviolent acts of direct civil disobedience held a large impact on the civil rights movement. He showed that you could directly take action against laws you thought were unjust in a civil peaceful manner of descent. In 1896 Justice John Harlan spoke out against segregation saying that “Our Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among its citizens.” The Constitution should be blind to the color of your skin, to your religion, to your gender, and anything else that tries to label you in a way other than U.S. citizen. In regards to the economy the role of gender should not apply, but it usually does though not usually through intentional discrimination.
Dear Honorable Titian: I understand the House of Representatives of the United States has just passed a bill which would do away with federal grants to college students. I am currently enrolled in college and depend greatly on the grants I receive. These grants allow great opportunity, for not just me, but for many other students as well. Taking them away would cause problems in several areas. The passage of the “Pick the Public’s Pocket No More” bill would lower college application rates, lower college graduation rates, and lower our country’s number of new college graduates for open positions in the work force.
Equal opportunity and fair treatment of employees regardless of race, culture or gender are guaranteed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Civil Rights decisions on affirmative action are best expressed in the University of California v. Bakke case, but such decisions have come under fire of late by opponents of affirmative action that claim it unfairly discriminates against whites. A number of lawsuits were brought against the University of Michigan for awarding 20 of the required 100 points for admission to any candidate who represented an underrepresented minority. The Court’s decision ruled in favor of assessing race as criteria for consideration but cautioned that it should only be one of many considerations. However, the decisions supports the belief among American educators and businesses that the skills needed in today’s society can only be developed through exposure to widely diverse people, races and cultures.
But, the Statue of Liberty’s famous remarks about “Land of Opportunity” was all but a myth and not seen as reality. The court’s decisions during the late 19th and early 20th century built the legal restrictions of race. The decisions established what was white and law established who would be allowed to Naturalize. The construction of legal restrictions of race and whiteness was at its peak As the second wave of
Penn State lawyers said, “the Court held that Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admission policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, thereby calling into question the validity of single-sex public education opportunities. Since this decision, the Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of single-sex public education in the elementary and secondary context. Many school districts, even while acknowledging that they are not entirely certain that single-sex schools and classes are legal.” The people who allowed single-sex education in their school districts are beginning to doubt the decision because of the possibility of legal difficulties. Yes, single-sex education has been around for hundreds of years, but that doesn’t mean that single-sex schooling is necessarily legal. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that school districts have far less to worry in the legal about if coeducation was