Affirmative action: lesson overview

Both these cases were class action suits involving applications to the University of Michigan, and were heard by the Court at the same time. Grutter involved an application to the University of Michigan Law School, whose affirmative action program the Court upheld; while in Gratz the applications were for undergraduate admission—the Court held this process to be unconstitutional.

Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)— In 1997, Barbara Grutter was denied admission to the University of Michigan Law School despite having a high undergraduate GPA (3.8) and a high Law School Admissions Test score (161). Her lawyers argued that the law school’s use of race as a factor in admission decisions was unconstitutional and the reason Grutter was denied admission to the law school.

The Court held that the equal protection clause does not prohibit the Law School’s use of race in admissions decisions as a means to “[achieve] diversity among its student body” as detailed in its admissions policy, and that race was not the deciding factor in admission. Because of the way in which the Law School conducted individual reviews of each applicant, meaningfully considering any factors that contribute to diversity (such as diversity in majors, socio-economic background, and gender), the Court ruled that the admissions process did not violate the equal protection clause.

Writing for the majority, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stated that “[r]ace-based action necessary to further a compelling governmental interest does not violate the equal protection clause so long as it is narrowly tailored to further that interest."

Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)— The University of Michigan’s Office of Undergraduate of Admissions (OUA) used a point system to determine admission in the 1990s. Factors for awarding points included high school grades, standardized test scores, alumni relationships, geography, and race. In 1995, two white students, Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher, were denied admission to the university and told that they were qualified but not competitive enough for admission on first review.

Their lawyers argued that the admission procedure discriminated against certain racial and ethnic groups in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because applicants from certain groups determined to be “underrepresented minorities” were automatically given an additional 20 points towards their application, out of 100 points needed to be considered to be admitted.

The Supreme Court struck down the OUA’s admission process because it did not provide individual consideration to each applicant in the way that the Law School’s did. The majority opinion held that the OUA’s admission policy did not allow for sufficient consideration of non-racial factors in determining the admissibility of a candidate from an underrepresented group, and that it created a quota system which had previously been ruled unconstitutional in University of California v. Bakke (1978).

Article written by Dr. Kimberly Kutz Elliott. This article is licensed under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.