Docket 76-811
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
DecidedJun 28, 1978
5-4 (fractured, no majority opinion)decision
Source: CourtListener.
Court strikes down UC Davis's fixed racial quota but allows race as one admissions factor
Impact9/10
What it does
The ruling strikes down UC Davis's practice of setting aside 16 of 100 medical school seats exclusively for designated minority applicants, ordering Bakke's admission, but holds that universities may still consider race as one factor among many in an individualized admissions process to achieve student body diversity. It establishes that racial classifications by government, even those intended to help minority groups, are subject to strict judicial scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Who benefits
Allan Bakke, who is ordered admitted to medical school; white and other applicants excluded from fixed racial set-asides; universities retain some ability to use race as a "plus factor" in admissions decisions going forward.
Who is affected
Minority applicants who previously competed only against each other for a fixed number of reserved seats lose that guaranteed allocation; public and federally funded universities must redesign quota-based admissions programs to use more flexible, individualized race-conscious review.
Practical impact
Universities receiving federal funds could no longer use fixed numerical set-asides or separate admissions tracks that completely barred one racial group from competing for designated seats, but could design "holistic" admissions processes considering race alongside other individual factors. This decision shaped decades of university admissions practice, prompting institutions nationwide to adopt Harvard-style individualized review rather than quotas until later rulings further restricted race-conscious admissions.
Majority reasoning
Justice Powell, announcing the judgment, reasoned that the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause belong to individuals, not groups, so any racial classification—even one favoring a minority—must survive strict scrutiny regardless of whether the group burdened is a "discrete and insular minority." He rejected UC Davis's fixed quota because it excluded white applicants entirely from competing for 16 seats based solely on race, calling this facially invalid discrimination for its own sake when justified merely as remedying "societal discrimination" without particularized findings of past wrongdoing by the school itself. However, Powell found that achieving a diverse student body is a constitutionally permissible, compelling interest tied to academic freedom under the First Amendment, and that race could permissibly be used as one flexible "plus" factor in a holistic review process, citing the Harvard College admissions model as an example of a constitutionally acceptable approach. Powell also declined to resolve whether Title VI creates a private right of action, assuming so only for purposes of the case, and concluded that Title VI's prohibition on racial exclusion is coextensive with, not broader than, the Equal Protection Clause.
Dissent reasoning
Justice Stevens, joined by Chief Justice Burger, Justice Stewart, and Justice Rehnquist, concurred in the judgment ordering Bakke's admission but dissented from the portion of the Court's decision that addressed and upheld the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions programs more broadly. Stevens argued the Court should have resolved the case entirely on statutory grounds: Title VI's plain language states that no person shall be "excluded from participation" in a federally funded program "on the ground of race," and UC Davis excluded Bakke because of his race while receiving federal funds, so the statute alone required affirmance without reaching the constitutional question. He contended that longstanding judicial practice counsels against deciding constitutional issues when a statutory ground is dispositive, and criticized the plurality opinion by Justices Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun for going further than necessary to announce broad approval of race-conscious admissions programs that were not squarely before the Court, since this case involved only Bakke and this University's specific program.
Constitutional question
Whether a state medical school's special admissions program, which reserved a fixed number of seats for members of certain minority groups, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Precedent changed
The ruling did not overrule prior precedent but declined to extend Lau v. Nichols and United Jewish Organizations v. Carey, distinguishing them as cases involving administrative or legislative findings of discrimination, unlike UC Davis's unilateral program.