Board of Regents v. Bakke

In class today we held a moot court for the Board of Regents of the University of California Davis v. Bakke Supreme Court case. This case was a landmark decision that upheld affirmative action but disallowed the use of quotas. Quotas were used by many schools, in particular the medical school at the University of California Davis, where they designated 16 out of 100 seats for African American Students. These quotas were the result of the effort from universities to ensure they integrated their student body. Yet, according to Bakke and later supported by the Courts decision, these quotas violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by singularly using race as a determining factor in the acceptance of a student. The intent of the quotas were just, yet their application became unjust because they discriminated against those who weren't minorities.

I enjoyed listening to the arguments presented by the litigation groups. It's always interesting to see how my peers will develop their arguments and go about working the case. I think that the defense had a rough time against the attacks of the prosecution mostly because the prosecution had the force of the law behind them. All in all I agree with the courts decision and believe that race should be one of the factors in determining acceptance but not the sole factor. Allowing an admissions council to deny someone solely on the basis of race can lead to the acceptance of less qualified candidates simply because they aren't white, as was the case with Bakke.