Bakke Decision of the US Supreme Court

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.  A case decided by the US Supreme Court in 1978 involving charges of reverse discrimination created by an Affirmative Action program that gave preference to nonwhite applicants to a medical school. In the Bakker decision the Supreme Court took its first step in dealing with the problems in implementing affirmative action programs.  Allen P Bakke, a white male, 33 years of age applied for admission to the Medical School of the University of California at Davis in 1973 and 1974 but was denied admission both years while minority applicants with grade point averages significantly lower than Bakke's were admitted under a special admissions program. The program reserved 16 of the 100 places in the class solely for African Americans, Chicanos, Asians and American Indians. In effect white applicants could compete for only 84 places while minorities could compete for all 100 places. After his second rejection in 1974, Bakke filed a suit in the Superior Court of California alleging that the special admissions program at Davis violated his rights under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohinited excluding any person from a federally funded program on the basis race and under California Constitution.