Allan Bakke v Univetrsity of California

This is the final action project for my Humanities class called, “Policy”. In this unit we learned about the different ways the executive branch can affect other branches. One of the things we did in this unit was create a timeline about supreme court cases that happened in the U.S. The case I chose on the timeline was Allan Bakke V University of California. In this action project, we had to create an argument that chooses whether the ruling of the case was justified based on the constitution. One of my struggles during this action project was finding out the other side’s real argument. I eventually learned that they were afraid to seem racist, which is why they needed affirmative action in the first place. Enjoy my project!

Rims(1970's)"Allan Bakke"

Allan Bakke at age 35 tried to apply for college twice and didn’t get in, even though he had data that showed others who we minorities that got in. After taking the case to court the University of California believed it was just following the law through affirmative action. Bake also believed that the case was violating his right to the 14th amendment, therefore the schools perspective of affirmative action was unconstitutional. In the end, the court ruled in Bakke’s favor by banning fixed racial quotas but upholding affirmative action while still allowing schools to consider race.

Some of the history of this case relates all the way back to Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. In this case, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled segregation by race in public schools to be unconstitutional. A little over a decade later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VI which forbids racial discrimination in any program or activity receiving federal funding. These two cases were important in realizing the constitutionality of the ruling, since the amendments and acts are meant to apply to everyone.

Allan Bakke was the plaintiff and he believed that he deserved a spot in the school. Bakke received 468 points out of a possible 500 on the admissions committee’s rating scale in 1973. Earlier in the year, a rating of 470 had won automatic admission with some promising applicants being admitted with lower scores. Bakke scored in the 97th percentile in scientific knowledge, the 96th percentile in verbal ability, and the 94th percentile in quantitative analysis.

University of California(1868) "The University of California Berkeley"

In the University of California’s defense, they admitted that affirmative action was a large factor in denying Allan Bakke. The issue was that affirmative action automatically fills up space within the schools, which means applicants like Bakke are less likely to get into the schools. At that point in time, the University of California had to fill a quota and set aside room for 16% of its applicants for a minority group.

The court joined with Judge Powell to find affirmative action permissible under some circumstances, though subject to an intermediate scrutiny standard of analysis. They also joined with Powell to reverse that portion of the judgment of the California Supreme Court that forbade the university to consider race in the admissions process. It violated the Equal Protection Clause which is part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took was created in 1868, states that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction "the equal protection of the laws".

I believe that the ruling of this case was justified. Affirmative action was a big part of this case which means the 14th amendment is automatically tied to this case. Affirmative action is a set of laws, policies, guidelines, and administrative practices "intended to end and correct the effects of a specific form of discrimination.” These include government-mandated, government-sanctioned, and voluntary private programs that tend to focus on access to education and employment, granting special consideration to historically excluded groups, specifically racial minorities or women. During the Reconstruction Era the idea of affirmative action was created to help former slaves gain the knowledge and resources for sustainable living. Even though this case is not about slavery it’s about equal rights to the law.

Today this case is still affecting colleges and keeping our society as unbiased as possible. An example of this is of a recent case was during August 2017 where the Department of Justice tried suing colleges on the behalf of white students. The reasoning for this was based on the Bakke’ decision and was used to stop what they believe is racism against white students. Of course, racism isn’t likely to completely go away for a long time, but this case represents that reverse racism is also not okay.

Works Cited

“The Supreme Court . Expanding Civil Rights . Landmark Cases . Regents of University of California v. Bakke (1978) | PBS.” THIRTEEN - MEDIA WITH IMPACT, Educational Broadcasting Corporation, Dec. 2006,

"Regents of the University of California v. Bakke." Oyez, 31 May. 2018

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Bakke Decision.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 31 Jan. 2014,

Little, Becky. “Why the DOJ Is Suing Colleges on Behalf of White Students.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 3 Aug. 2017

“Regents of the Uni v. of Cal. v. Bakke.” LII / Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School