Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hammacher, both white residents of Michigan, were denied admission to the university. They subsequently sued the university in a federal court, alleging that its admissions process was unconstitutional. The federal court agreed, and the case was appealed up to the Supreme Court, which reviewed the case in The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist , ruled that the University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions program was unconstitutional because it violated the Equal Protection Clause.
The Court noted that the university automatically conferred points based on an applicant's race, thereby placing some minority candidates ahead of nonminorities in admissions rankings. The Court argued that this system made "race a decisive factor for virtually every minimally qualified underrepresented minority applicant.
Together, Gratz and Grutter affirmed and refined the Supreme Court's position on affirmative action a quarter century after its initial decision in Regents of University of California v. Bakke And the most effective way to achieve that is through investing in The Bill of Rights Institute. We contribute to teachers and students by providing valuable resources, tools, and experiences that promote civic engagement through a historical framework. You can be a part of this exciting work by making a donation to The Bill of Rights Institute today!
Make your investment into the leaders of tomorrow through the Bill of Rights Institute today! Learn more about the different ways you can partner with the Bill of Rights Institute. The Bill of Rights Institute engages, educates, and empowers individuals with a passion for the freedom and opportunity that exist in a free society. Read the Case Background and Key Question. Then analyze Documents A-L. Similar local groups intervened in the law school case. The University vigorously defended its use of race in admissions decisions as a means of achieving a diverse student body and asserted that it had a constitutionally sufficient compelling interest in achieving a diverse student body.
In both cases, the University assembled an extraordinary record of facts and expert analyses to establish that a diverse student body provided educational benefits to all of the university's students.
The challengers largely conceded the educational benefits of a diverse student body, but asserted that those benefits were irrelevant because the use of race violated the constitution.
The intervenors supported the University in its view that a diverse educational environment was beneficial for all students and was a compelling interest. Similarly, a university may not maintain a high admission standard and grant exemptions to favored races. The Law School, of its own choosing, and for its own purposes, maintains an exclusionary admissions system that it knows produces racially disproportionate results.
Racial discrimination is not a permissible solution to the self-inflicted wounds of this elitist admissions policy. First, I agree with the Court insofar as its decision, which approves of only one racial classification, confirms that further use of race in admissions remains unlawful. Ante , at The strict scrutiny standard that the Court purports to apply in this case was first enunciated in Korematsu v. Richmond v. For example, Wygant v.
See Brief for Respondents, O. Nevertheless, the Court found that the use of race violated the Equal Protection Clause, deeming both asserted state interests insufficiently compelling. An even greater governmental interest involvesthe sensitive role of courts in child custody determinations. In Palmore v. Finally, the Court has rejected an interest in remedying general societal discrimination as a justification for race discrimination.
See Wygant , supra, at plurality opinion ; Croson, U. But see Gratz v. Bollinger , ante, p. Lee v. Washington, U. The Constitution abhors classifications based on race, not only because those classifications can harm favored races or are based on illegitimate motives, but also because every time the government places citizens on racial registers and makes race relevant to the provision of burdens or benefits, it demeans us all.
Unlike the majority, I seek to define with precision the interest being asserted by the Law School before determining whether that interest is so compelling as to justify racial discrimination. The Law School, however, apparently believes that only a racially mixed student body can lead to the educational benefits it seeks. A distinction between these two ideas unique educational benefits based on racial aesthetics and race for its own sake is purely sophistic—so much so that the majority uses them interchangeably.
In other words, the Law School seeks to improve marginally the education it offers without sacrificing too much of its exclusivity and elite status. I find each of them to fall far short of this standard. In the absence of any explanation, one might expect the Court to fall back on the judicial policy of stare decisis. Today, the Court insists on radically expanding the range of permissible uses of race to something as trivial by comparison as the assembling of a law school class.
See Part VI, infra. Under the proper standard, there is no pressing public necessity in maintaining a public law school at all and, it follows, certainly not an elite law school. Likewise, marginal improvements in legal education do not qualify as a compelling state interest. While legal education at a public university may be good policy or otherwise laudable, it is obviously not a pressing public necessity when the correct legal standard is applied.
Additionally, circumstantial evidence as to whether a state activity is of pressing public necessity can be obtained by asking whether all States feel compelled to engage in that activity. The fact that some fraction of the States reject a particular enterprise, however, creates a presumption that the enterprise itself is not a compelling state interest. Margolis, B. Gordon, J. Rosenlieb, eds.
As the foregoing makes clear, Michigan has no compelling interest in having a law school at all, much less an elite one. Still, even assuming that a State may, under appropriate circumstances, demonstrate a cognizable interest in having an elite law school, Michigan has failed to do so here. The Court held in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, U. The equal protection. It is an obligation the burden of which cannot be cast by one State upon another, and no State can be excused from performance by what another State may do or fail to do.
That separate responsibility of each State within its own sphere is of the essence of statehood maintained under our dual system. There is not an office in the State in which serious legal inquiries may not frequently arise…. In all these matters, public and private rights are constantly involved and discussed, and ignorance of the Law has frequently led to results deplorable and alarming…. Brown, Legal Education at Michigan —, pp. The Law School today, however, does precious little training of those attorneys who will serve the citizens of Michigan.
In sum, the Law School trains few Michigan residents and overwhelmingly serves students, who, as lawyers, leave the State of Michigan. Again, the fact that few States choose to maintain elite law schools raises a strong inference that there is nothing compelling about elite status. Arguably, only the public law schools of the University of Texas, the University of California, Berkeley Boalt Hall , and the University of Virginia maintain the same reputation for excellence as the Law School.
And these two schools far outshine the Law School in producing in-state lawyers. Therefore, the Law School should be forced to choose between its classroom aesthetic and its exclusionary admissions system—it cannot have it both ways. With the adoption of different admissions methods, such as accepting all students who meet minimum qualifications, see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 13—14, the Law School could achieve its vision of the racially aesthetic student body without the use of racial discrimination.
The Law School concedes this, but the Court holds, implicitly and under the guise of narrow tailoring, that the Law School has a compelling state interest in doing what it wants to do. I cannot agree. In my view, there is no basis for a right of public universities to do what would otherwise violate the Equal Protection Clause. Sweezy, a Marxist economist, was investigated by the Attorney General of New Hampshire on suspicion of being a subversive.
The prosecution sought, inter alia , the contents of a lecture Sweezy had given at the University of New Hampshire. The Court held that the investigation violated due process. Justice Frankfurter went further, however, reasoning that the First Amendment created a right of academic freedom that prohibited the investigation. The majority fails in its summary effort to prove this point.
Again, however, the Court did not relax any independent constitutional restrictions on public universities. The Court relies heavily on social science evidence to justify its deference. The Court never acknowledges, however, the growing evidence that racial and other sorts of heterogeneity actually impairs learning among black students. At oral argument in Gratz v. College Admissions Data Handbook —, p.
But see United States v. Fordice, U. That case involved sex discrimination, which is subjected to intermediate, not strict, scrutiny. Boren , U. S , Apparently where the status quo being defended is that of the elite establishment—here the Law School—rather than a less fashionable Southern military institution, the Court will defer without serious inquiry and without regard to the applicable legal standard.
Total underrepresented minority student enrollment at Boalt Hall now exceeds levels. Apparently the Law School cannot be counted on to be as resourceful. The Equal Protection Clause does not, however, prohibit the use of unseemly legacy preferences or many other kinds of arbitrary admissions procedures.
What the Equal Protection Clause does prohibit are classifications made on the basis of race. So while legacy preferences can stand under the Constitution, racial discrimination cannot. The majority should similarly stay its impulse to validate faddish racial discrimination the Constitution clearly forbids. The University of Michigan should be well aware that alternative methods have historically been used for the admission of students, for it brought to this country the German certificate system in the lateth century.
See H. Under this system, a secondary school was certified by a university so that any graduate who completed the course offered by the school was offered admission to the university.
The certification regime supplemented, and later virtually replaced at least in the Midwest , the prior regime of rigorous subject-matter entrance examinations.
Certification was replaced by selective admissions in the beginning of the 20th century, as universities sought to exercise more control over the composition of their student bodies. Since its inception, selective admissions has been the vehicle for racial, ethnic, and religious tinkering and experimentation by university administrators.
The initial driving force for the relocation of the selective function from the high school to the universities was the same desire to select racial winners and losers that the Law School exhibits today. See Qualified Student — Columbia ; H.
Columbia employed intelligence tests precisely because Jewish applicants, who were predominantly immigrants, scored worse on such tests. We have honestly attempted to eliminate the lowest grade of applicant [through the use of intelligence testing] and it turns out that a good many of the low grade men are New York City Jews. Hawkes, dean of Columbia College, to E. Wilson, June 16, reprinted in Qualified Student — In other words, the tests were adopted with full knowledge of their disparate impact.
DeFunis v. Odegaard, U. See Part IV, supra. The Law School itself admits that the test is imperfect, as it must, given that it regularly admits students who score at or below the national median on the test. The Law School may freely continue to employ the LSAT and other allegedly merit-based standards in whatever fashion it likes. What the Equal Protection Clause forbids, but the Court today allows, is the use of these standards hand-in-hand with racial discrimination.
An infinite variety of admissions methods are available to the Law School. The Court will not even deign to make the Law School try other methods, however, preferring instead to grant a year license to violate the Constitution. And the same Court that had the courage to order the desegregation of all public schools in the South now fears, on the basis of platitudes rather than principle, to force the Law School to abandon a decidedly imperfect admissions regime that provides the basis for racial discrimination.
The Court spends considerable time discussing the impressive display of amicus support for the Law School in this case from all corners of society. Ante , at 18— The Law School is not looking for those students who, despite a lower LSAT score or undergraduate grade point average, will succeed in the study of law. The Law School seeks only a facade—it is sufficient that the class looks right, even if it does not perform right.
The Law School tantalizes unprepared students with the promise of a University of Michigan degree and all of the opportunities that it offers.
These overmatched students take the bait, only to find that they cannot succeed in the cauldron of competition. And this mismatch crisis is not restricted to elite institutions. See T. Indeed, to cover the tracks of the aestheticists, this cruel farce of racial discrimination must continue—in selection for the Michigan Law Review, see University of Michigan Law School Student Handbook —, pp.
It is uncontested that each year, the Law School admits a handful of blacks who would be admitted in the absence of racial discrimination. Who can differentiate between those who belong and those who do not? The majority of blacks are admitted to the Law School because of discrimination, and because of this policy all are tarred as undeserving. When blacks take positions in the highest places of government, industry, or academia, it is an open question today whether their skin color played a part in their advancement.
As noted earlier, the Court has soundly rejected the remedying of societal discrimination as a justification for governmental use of race. Wygant , U. See Holder v. Hall, U. I do, however, find two points on which I agree. First, I note that the issue of unconstitutional racial discrimination among the groups the Law School prefers is not presented in this case, because petitioner has never argued that the Law School engages in such a practice, and the Law School maintains that it does not.
Ante, at 13— Thus, the Law School may not discriminate in admissions between similarly situated blacks and Hispanics, or between whites and Asians. This is so because preferring black to Hispanic applicants, for instance, does nothing to further the interest recognized by the majority today.
While I agree that in 25 years the practices of the Law School will be illegal, they are, for the reasons I have given, illegal now.
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