Supreme Court Rules Bakke Must Be Admitted to Cal. Medical School

The Supreme Court ruled today that the University of California Medical School at Davis must admit Allan Bakke to its freshman class. A majority of five Justices held that it was unlawful for a medical school to reserve a certain number of places for minority applicants, thereby upholding a California Supreme Court ruling that Bakke had been discriminated against because he is white.

The Supreme Court ruled, however, that government-supported programs may take race into account “when it acts not to demean or insult any racial group but to remedy disadvantages cast on minorities by past racial prejudices.” The five justices who rendered in the majority decision failed to concur on what factors were needed to make the so-called “affirmative action” programs constitutional. (For reactions to the long awaited Supreme Court ruling see story on Page 3.)