Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

The U.C. Davis Medical School used a special type of admissions process to determine which of its applicants should be admitted. In 1973, it had reserved 16 of 100 spots at the medical school for minority or disadvantaged students. Alan Bakke, one of the white applicants to the U.C. Davis Medical School was denied admission even though his MCAT and other test scores were higher than those of the other 84, regular applicants admitted. He took this case to court and, on appeal, the California Supreme Court fell in favor of Bakke and demanded that he be admitted and, in retaliation, the regents appealed to the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 split, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bakke, proclaiming that the admissions program at the university violated the equal protection clause and was not constitutional, even though it said that there were ways of creating a special admissions program that is constitutional. The majority opinion of the Court asserted that the Fourteenth Amendment, although created to create equality for blacks, does not specify race, and demands equality.

In my opinion, the Court's ruling was very fair and reasonable in this major case. People should not obtain unfair advantages over others because of their race or beliefs or anything, and all people should be seen as equals, unless there are special circumstances surrounding a certain person in specific that should be considered. Universities should admit the best of all applicants, rather than separate white applicants from other applicants and admit that way.

There were very few YouTube videos about this Supreme Court case so, again, I went to the site CaseBriefs to obtain a greater understanding of the case. CaseBriefs provides a good overall summary of  Regents of the University of Calfiornia v. Bakke and the decision of the case, and the piece on this case summarizes the rule established by the case as follows:

Race-based classifications, for purposes of school admissions, are constitutional. The use of racial-quotas, however, is unconstitutional.

As I have stated before, I side with the Supreme Court's decision that Fourteenth Amendment, although it was created to create equality for blacks, is not termed in a way that aims the rights it declares as specifically for blacks. The amendment puts no specific terms on the equality it declares, therefore, all races must be considered equal in order to abide by the Constitution.