Bakke
In 1973 a thirty-three year old Caucasian male named Allan Bakke applied to and was denied admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. In 1974 he filed another application and was once again rejected, even though his t est scores were considerably higher than various minorities that were admitted under a special program. This special program specified that 16 out of 100 possible spaces for the students in the medical program were set aside solely for minorities, while the other 84 slots were for anyone who qualified, including minorities. What happened to Bakke is known as reverse discrimination. Bakke felt his rejections to be violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment, so he took the University of California Regents to the Superior Court of California. It was ruled that "the admissions program violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment." The clause reads as follows: "...No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor without due process of the law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The court ruled that race could not be a fa
The decision of the Supreme Court was seen as "something for everyone." In other words, each side, although not completely gaining their ends, furthered their cause. The special admissions program at Davis was deemed unconstitutional because it specified a number of minority slots. However, the court upheld the use of race or ethnicity as "a 'plus' in a particular applicant's file, so long as it does not isolate the individual from comparison with all other candidates for the available seats." "Justice Powell was the key to the Bakke decision; In fact, it could be said that he created both majorities in addition to merely agreeing with them." The decision to do away with the Davis special admissions quota system was supported by Powell, Chief Justice Burger, Justice Rehnquist, Justice Potter Stewart, and Justice John Paul Stevens. They saw the Bakke case as a dispute which could be settled by the 1964 Civil Rights Act without even calling constitutional matters into question. "Title VI of the act, they pointed out, barred any discrimination on the ground of race, color, or national origin in any program receiving federal financial assistance." Therefore, the university had violated that part of the 1964 Civil Right s Act. ctor in admissions. However, they did not force the admittance of Bakke because the court could not know if he would have been admitted if the special admissions program for minorities did not exist . Bakke disagreed with the court on this issue and he brought it before the California Supreme Court. The California Supreme Court held that it was the University's burden to prove that Bakke would not have been admitted if
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1114
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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