UCLA admissions policy withstands court case
Affirmative action debate returns to forefront nearly 17 years
after decision
By Kimberly Mackesy
Allan Bakke applied to the UC Davis medical school in 1973. He
had a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford
University and an MCAT score of 468 out of 500.
He was rejected.
The following year, he reapplied to Davis with a score of 549
out of 600.
He was rejected again.
According to the Bakke case, UC Davis Medical School had two
separate programs for admission to the 100-student class. In the
regular admissions program, admission was based on criteria such as
MCAT scores, GPA, interviews and letters of recommendation. Without
a minimum 2.5 GPA, applicants were rejected.
In the special admissions program, economically and/or
educationally disadvantaged students and members of a "minority
group" did not have to meet the 2.5 GPA requirement. Special
admissions applicants were allocated 16 spaces in the incoming
class, leaving 84 spaces for regular admissions students.
Bakke, a white male, alleged that UC Davis had admitted students
with lower scores than his under the special admissions program,
and he would have been admitted if it weren’t for the special
admissions program. He soon filed suit alleging violation of the
Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, the California
Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The case went through the trial court and the California Supreme
Court before the U.S. Supreme Court declared quotas illegal in
1978.
In what has been hailed as one of the most paramount civil
rights decisions since Brown vs. Board of Education, Regents of the
University of California vs. Bakke divided the Supreme Court. In a
5-4 vote on June 28, 1978, the court ordered UC Davis to admit
Bakke, struck down Davis’ quota-based affirmative action admissions
policy, but allowed for future use of race as a factor in
admissions to the University of California.
Now, nearly 17 years after the Supreme Court’s controversial
precedent-setting decision, affirmative action is once again at the
forefront of national debate. As the deliberation rages on among
scholars and students alike, affirmative action in the University
of California has once again come under fire.
While the policy used in undergraduate admissions at UCLA has
evolved gradually over time, nothing particular was changed in
light of the Bakke decision, said Director of Undergraduate
Admissions Rae Lee Siporin, who’s been at UCLA since 1979. The UC
Davis affirmative action policy was quota based, whereas UCLA has
never used quotas in admissions decisions, Siporin said.
"Bakke really didn’t come into play in undergraduate
admissions," Siporin said. "There was no need to change
undergraduate admissions policy because we were never in violation
of Bakke."
Siporin added that when each candidate is evaluated, s/he has
two scores, an "academic" score and a "supplemental" score. In the
first round of admissions, which makes up about 60 percent of the
admits, only academic criteria are used. In the second pass, about
20 percent of the yearly admits are admitted using a combination of
the two scores. In the third pass, in which the remaining 20
percent are selected, 5,000 to 6,000 students are chosen for a
second comprehensive review using both criteria.
Siporin added that admission to UCLA has become increasingly
competitive in all areas.
Lily Fobert, director of admissions at UCLA medical school, said
the Bakke decision didn’t affect admissions policies at UCLA
medical center or many other institutions.
"(Admissions) were never based on any quota system at UCLA,"
Fobert said. "I don’t think Bakke changed too many admissions
policies."
Fobert added that the UCLA medical school takes various personal
and individual criteria into account, including ethnicity and/or
financial disadvantage and other circumstances.
Although there was no precedent-setting case on special
admissions prior to Bakke, several important cases laid the
historical framework for the case.
Cases such as Sipul vs. Board of Regents (1948), Sweatt vs.
Painter (1950), and McLaurin vs. Oklahoma State Regents (1950)
addressed the question of "separate but equal" segregated
educational institutions. The landmark case Brown vs. Board of
Education (1954) established that "separate but equal" segregated
schools were not equal, and thus set the stage for further civil
rights efforts.
In DeFunis vs. Odegaard (1973), the Washington State Supreme
Court ruled that the University of Washington School of Law’s
"special admissions" policies were in the best interests of the
state. The Supreme Court did not hear the case, believing it to be
moot (a dead issue) because DeFunis was about to graduate from law
school by the time it reached the court.
In 1976, a case brought against Georgetown University ended the
allocation of 60 percent of all financial aid to minority students,
even though minority students represented 11 percent of all
students.
Several cases came up between 1975 and 1976 in which the
plaintiffs alleged reverse discrimination was the basis for
rejection from their respective universities. None reached the
Supreme Court prior to Bakke.
The issue on whether or not race should play a part in higher
education admissions came as close to a tie as is possible in the
nine-judge court. Justice Powell, in the majority opinion, wrote
that the UC Davis admission program should be overturned. But he
concurred with the four dissenting judges in that he thought
diversity is an important goal.
"As the interest of diversity is compelling in the context of a
university’s admissions program, the question remains whether the
program’s racial classification is necessary to promote that
interest," Powell wrote.
In his opinion, dissenting Justice Blackmun expressed a
hopefulness that affirmative action would soon no longer be
necessary, but until that time comes, we must continue to use
it.
"I yield to no one in my earnest hope that the time will come
when an affirmative action program is unnecessary and … a relic
of the past. I would hope that we could reach this stage within a
decade at the most. But the story of Brown vs. Board of Education
… suggests that that hope is a slim one," he wrote.
"In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of
race … And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat
them differently."