Board of Regents v. Bakke: What I Learned
During our mock trial presentations for the case, Board of Regents v. Bakke, a multitude of valid claims were made for both sides. This case is particularly interesting because the topic of affirmative action has been quite apparent to this day because many people believe that race should never be a factor in the process of determining the admittance status of educational applications. However, it is not a matter of race, rather the socioeconomic status of those applying, and because of the way our country is structured, the people who typically are at a lower socioeconomic status are minorities. The basis of affirmative action is to provide opportunities to students who otherwise would not be able to afford college or attend college due to other circumstances. Unfortunately, due to the underlying circumstances regarding who qualifies for affirmative action, made the topic of it highly race-based.
This case itself revolved around Bakke, a white man who was denied acceptance to University of California Medical School at Davis two times. He was denied admittance both times that he applied. The school reserves sixteen percent in their program every year for qualified minorities in order to promote diversity and give people who wouldn't necessarily have the opportunity to go to medical school a chance to extend their studies. The main factor in this case was that Bakke's test scores and GPA exceeded the accepted minorities' by far. On this premise, Bakke believed that he was, in fact, the one being discriminated against in an attempt at "reverse-racism". In California courts and in the Supreme Court, Bakke argued that he was being discriminated against solely based on race. Which could have been the case, but it was not (Oyez).
Another interesting point of this case that I did not know previously was that while the court declared affirmative action constitutional, it "invalidated the use of racial quotas" (Britannica), meaning that you could not set minimums or maximums on how many students a school can accept based on their race or ethnic group. By doing so, schools can give minorities and underprivileged students the opportunities they deserve without being accused of trying to "artificially" promote diversity.