Question

The term “reverse discrimination”. Discussed with the Bakke case where in Mr. Bakke had the qualifications needed to get into medical school in California. However, in an attempt to make up for discrimination in education in the 1960’s and earlier (Bakke took place in the late 60’s), the school kept 16 of its 100 seats open for minority applicants only; the other 84 could be competed for by anyone. Bakke sued the school, and the Court ruled that he was the victim of reverse discrimination.

Re: the case of Steelworkers v. Weber. In that case, the Court didn’t exactly define reverse discrimination. Rather, the Court set forth a set of factors to use to determine whether reverse discrimination had been committed, or if the employer, school, etc. was acting properly to make up for past discrimination.

Read the Court’s list of factors and discuss your thoughts on the Court’s opinion.

Answer 1

Case of the University of California vs Bakke

In Regents of University of California v. Bakke (1978), the Supreme Court ruled that a university's use of racial quotas in its admissions process was unconstitutional, but a school's use of affirmative action to accept more minority applicants was constitutional in some circumstances. The Court agreed to the Bakke's contention, saying that the quota system explicitly discriminated against racial groups and the medical school, ordered to shut down its quota system.

In Bakke's case, what Bakke referred to as "reverse discrimination" is true. He was actually discriminated against the racial quotas

In my opinion, the Court's ruling in Bakke's case is right. Universities should make sure that they reserve a certain percentage of the seats for the minority students to promote educational diversity, but with certain clauses. It should have a cut-off mark and all the minorities who are above the cut-off should be eligible for the minority quota, and on the remaining number of the seats, both minority and non-minority students will have equal opportunity to fill the seats.

For instance, if the cut off is 700 out of 1000 marks, and out of 100 seats, 16 seats will be reserved for eligible minority students. And if out of 16, if 10 students qualify the cut-off eligibility, then the remaining 6 seats become open to being occupied by any (minority or non-minority), and both will have equal eligibility to occupy those 6 seats. In such a situation, racial issues will not crop up.