Equal Rights in Whatsamatta University - Assignment Example

In Bakke, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a college can apply preferential treatment to minority applicants for admission where the system is applied for the purpose of achieving student diversity. The Court ruling in Bakke determined that a college may award bonus points except where there is evidence of a quota-based system. There is no evidence in this case that such a quota was implemented.In the companion case to Gratz (supra), Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the court ruled that the affirmative action admissions policy administered by the University of Michigan Law School did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because the law school had an interest in obtaining a "critical mass" of minority students.

Whatsamatta University is entitled to award bonuses for minority students and to a verdict in its favor.For Dwight Cracker: While the holding in the Bakke case appears to permit rationally based racial preference in college admissions, it is important to note that Bakke was eventually admitted to the University of California. Cracker has strong support for a ruling that Whatsamatta U. violated Cracker's Equal Protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In Gratz v.

Bollinger (2003), the U.S. Supreme Court declared the University of Michigan's undergraduate affirmative action admissions policy unconstitutional where all racial minorities received an automatic point increase. That court ruled that a college must make individual determinations on each application and in this case, the automatic award of bonus points amounted to a quota. Chief Justice Rehnquist stated that such policies must be narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling interest in achieving student diversity.

In the court's dissent in Grutter (2003), Justice Thomas attacked Justice O'Connor's majority opinion in which she ruled that discrimination should be unlawful "in 25 years" but that affirmative action is currently necessary. He used the "25 years" as an example of why such systems are unconstitutional since Equal Protection is not temporary. The past 40 years of civil rights legislation and affirmative action have surpassed Justice O'Connor's "25 years" policy. Cracker is entitled to judgment in his favor.