Running head: LEGAL IMPLICATIONS: EQUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION ADMISSIONS

Legal Implications:
Racial Equality in Higher Education Admissions
Emily R. Wilson Yox
Georgia Southern University

LEGAL IMPLICATIONS: EQUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION ADMISSIONS

Racial Equality in Higher Education Admissions

Over the past hundred years the movement to eliminate racial boundaries and eradicate racial
discrimination has made substantial headway. There have been many significant advancements
towards this goal, but not without much debate and legal consideration. The challenge we face today is
in dismantling racial barriers to education while not going to such extremes as to penalize non-minority
students in their own pursuits of higher education. The question is, how do we accomplish this?
The changing social and political ideals of the day and the courts evolving opinions continue to
have great impact on college and university admissions policies and procedures. However the nuances
of their opinions are still open to debate. Despite the existing precedents, the door is certainly open for
future cases to challenge the somewhat less than consistent decisions of prior proceedings.
The idea of a racially diverse campus and the educational advantages that it brings to its'
students is certainly a positive ideal. The problem arises when we attempt to quantify the value of such
diversity in computing the equation of admissions. How much value does a racially diverse
background bring? Does race really guarantee a diverse background? Is such social capital worth
more than higher test scores or GPA's? Does the potential for racial diversity gains outweigh the
potential academic contributions of higher scoring non-minority applicants? All of these questions play
into the decision to continue affirmative action admission policies today, but the foundation of these
issues began more than a century ago. The summery of past proceedings, although not exhaustive, is as
follows.
Legal History
The most widely known case that began the journey towards educational equality was Brown
v. Board of Education Topeka (1954), where The Supreme Court overturned the separate but equal
policy made infamous in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) by determining that racially segregated schools
violated the equal rights clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Several cases paved the way for the Brown decision.

In Sweatt v. Painter (1950) a young man

by the name of Heman Sweatt applied for and was denied admission to the University of Texas Law
School in 1946 solely on the basis of race. When Sweatt contested the matter, the state courts
repeatedly determined that his fourteenth amendment right's had been violated, but denied him
compensation. It was not until a Supreme court ruling in 1950 that the courts began to lean in Sweatt's
favor. They ruled that on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause the University of Texas was
obligated to admit Sweatt.

LEGAL IMPLICATIONS: EQUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION ADMISSIONS

At the same time in Oklahoma, the courts were facing a similar situation. In McLaurin v.
Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, (1950), a young black man with a master's degree was
seeking entrance to the University of Oklahoma. He was granted admission and allowed to use student
space and facilities, but was limited to specifically labeled seating and restricted access times. The
Supreme Court ruled that officials at the University of Oklahoma violated the students right to equal
protection of the law by denying him an education that was equal to that of his peers.
In 1961 President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925 which created the Equal
Employment Opportunity Committee and required all government contractors to take affirmative
action to ensure that applicants were hired and employees were treated consistently no matter their
race, creed, color, or nationality. This order was was designed to promote access and equity for
minorities to programs utilizing federal funds, including higher education.
Educational institutions have taken up the banner of affirmative action to improve accessibility
for and increase the number of minority students enrolled in colleges and universities. However despite
their noble intentions, the constitutionality of the policies directed at achieving these goals have been
repeatedly challenged.
In 1974, DeFunis v. Odegaard was the first case against affirmative action to face the Supreme
Court. In this case Marco DeFunis Jr. was a White Jewish Student seeking admission to the law school
at the University of Washington in 1971. The admissions process for the school involved a score
system, whereby student were awarded points based on standardized test scores and high school GPA's.
It was learned that the admissions committee accepted minority students with lower scores than those
of their White peers. In the schools efforts to enroll an acceptable number of minority students, during
the same enrollment period that Defunis was denied enrollment, 36 minority students with lower
admissions scores were accepted into the program. As a result Defunis filed suit against the school and
a state trial court found that the school had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, and ordered school officials to admit Defunis.
In 1978 the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case again examined the merits of
affirmative action in higher education. In this case, Alan Bakke, a white male, applied to UC Davis
medical school in 1973. The school opened in two years prior, and had admitted almost no minority
students, as a result they had created a selective affirmative action admissions scoring process for
admissions applications from minority students. When Bakke was denied admission twice, he took the
matter before the court claiming that the admissions scoring system was excluding him solely on the

LEGAL IMPLICATIONS: EQUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION ADMISSIONS

basis of his race. The Supreme Court of California found the school's policy to be unconstitutional
because it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It granted minority
applicants a race-based advantage in the admissions process in spite of the fact that, by university
standards, they were not as well qualified as non-minorities who were denied admission. Additionally
the court ordered school officials to admit Bakke.
In 2003 two cases again brought the issue of affirmative action to the table with different
outcomes. In Gratz v. Bollinger the University if Michigan had developed a point based admission
system whereby applicants had to accumulate one hundred points to assure acceptance. Members of
certain minority groups were given twenty extra points simply because of their race. Upon review, the
courts found that because the university's admissions policy was not narrowly tailored to achieve a
compelling state interest, it was unconstitutional. On the other hand, that same year Grutter v.
Bollinger was being tried in the Supreme Court. This case involved a white female applicant to the
University of Michigan Law School. As the school reviewed applications, race was a contributing
factor is the approval decision. Official's confirmed during the case that had Grutter been a minority
applicant, she would have been admitted due to the special consideration given to minority applicants.
Ultimately the Supreme Court determined that the school's policies were constitutional because they
were narrowly tailored to achieve the goal of a diverse student body. They affirmed that there are
educational benefits to such diversity and thus achieving that diversity is a compelling state or
government interest.
In making this decisions the courts explained that it was following the concept of diversity
established in the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case of 1978. They also placed
several restrictions and stipulations on such programs. In order to stay within the acceptable boundaries
of narrow tailoring, school officials must engage in good faith considerations of nonracial alternatives.
Such programs must not place undue burden on non-minority applicants, must be reviewed regularly,
and must have a limited time duration. In addition, no applicant may be excluded from the competitive
admission process, race cannot be the defining feature of an application, quotas cannot be set for
certain racial groups, and all applicants regardless of race must follow the same admission tracks.
Future Implications
The decision to include race as a component of the admission consideration process is a
contentious one. An individual's race or ethnic background, and it's potential benefits for the student
population as a whole, has positive effects in some aspects, but also creates negative consequences for

LEGAL IMPLICATIONS: EQUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION ADMISSIONS

some applicants. Diminishing the admissions requirements for a select group of individuals hardly
seems fair, and denying admission to more highly academically qualified non-minority applicants
simply to open more space for minority applicants is contradictory as well. If the goal is truly to ensure
equality for all regardless of race, creed, color, or nationality, then none of these factors should be a
consideration for any employment or institutional admission. Cultural diversity has been shown to be a
valuable component in fulfilling an institution's educational mission. However perhaps the concepts of
race and cultural diversity have been incorrectly merged. Why has an individual's race been deemed a
certain predictor of cultural diversity? Culture is not solely race based. While many individuals of the
same race may share common cultural values, the same can be said of many individuals of different
racial backgrounds. The color of one's skin does not guarantee cultural heritage. For example the
African American experience in America can vary widely depending on socioeconomic and
geographical factors. The same can be said for Caucasian individuals, or any other race for that matter.
If universities are truly interested in achieving diversity, and not merely seeking to maintain their flow
of federal funds by complying with affirmative action policies, perhaps there are more effective ways
to identify diverse individuals than by simply checking the appropriate race box on the enrollment
application. Writing samples and questionnaires for example, or direct interviews of those applicants
falling within with marginal limits of admissions scores. Whatever the methods chosen, some more
accurate method of assessing applicants and their potential diverse contributions to the university are
needed.
Conclusions
The impact of the legal cases discussed above, and those that are sure to arise in the future, are
sure to test the standards set by the federal government to encourage racial integration and the
academic missions of higher education. Ultimately, the question of race that has haunted this nation
since it's founding will continue to be problematic so long as its' society continues to focus on racial
matters as opposed to cultural ones. When the question of race is removed completely, and equal
human rights are observed for all individuals, only then will we have a lasting resolution to the issue at
hand.

LEGAL IMPLICATIONS: EQUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION ADMISSIONS

References
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, 339 U.S. 637 (1950)
Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950).
Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312 (1974)
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003).
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003).