Grutter v. Bollinger

Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)

Main issue:
Whether the University of Michigan Law School could consider race as one factor among many when making admissions decisions.

Role of Race in Admissions

The Court held that race could be considered as part of an individualized, holistic admissions process.

• Admissions officers could consider an applicant's race as one factor among many.

• Race could help contribute to student diversity.

• Race could not be used as an automatic reason to admit or reject someone.

• could not use qouta system

Individualized review

each applicant is considered as an individual, rather than being automatically accepted/rejected based on one characteristic.

Holistic review

the school considers multiple aspects of the applicant together, such as:

• Academic record

• Test scores

• Experiences

• Personal background

• Accomplishments

• Contributions they could bring to the school

Plus Factor

race could positively influence an applicant's admissions consideration, but it was only one part of the overall decision.

• Example:

  Two applicants may have similar qualifications, but an applicant's race could be considered as part of the overall individualized evaluation.

  The important point is that race did not guarantee admission.

Rigid Quota

A quota would reserve a specific number or percentage of seats for people of a particular racial group.

Example:

"We must admit exactly 50 students from this racial group."

• That would not be individualized because race would effectively determine a set number of admissions.

Bakke

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke involved a medical school at UC Davis that had two separate admissions pools:

• 84 seats were available to everyone.

• 16 seats were reserved specifically for students from certain minority groups.

• Allan Bakke, a white applicant, was rejected even though his academic qualifications were higher than some applicants admitted through the reserved-seat system.

• Bakke challenged the admissions policy, arguing that the racial set-aside violated the Equal Protection Clause and federal civil-rights law.

court:

The Supreme Court rejected a medical school's system that reserved a fixed number of seats for minority applicants. However, the Court said race could be considered as one factor among many in an individualized admissions process.

Representation

having people from different racial/social groups represented within an institution.

Social inequality

 unequal access to resources, opportunities, and social advantages among different groups.

• Admissions policies involving race were connected to broader questions about racial inequality and access to educational opportunities.

Law & Institutional Decision-Making

Grutter also shows how law affects decisions made by institutions.

The Court was not simply deciding whether race "matters." It was determining what type of admissions system an institution could legally use.