Final answer:
The Bakke case was a 1978 Supreme Court decision that struck down the use of racial quotas in college admissions as unlawful. Affirmative action practices could continue but without fixed numbers of seats set aside for minorities. Quotas are benchmarks used to ensure diversity, which were deemed discriminatory in this context.
Step-by-step explanation:
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
The Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case was a significant Supreme Court decision from 1978 that dealt with the admissions policies of the University of California, Davis's medical school. Allan Bakke, a white applicant, was twice denied admission despite having higher test scores and a college grade point average than some minority applicants who were admitted through a special program. This program had set aside sixteen places for minority candidates. Bakke sued the university for racial discrimination, which led to a landmark ruling.
The Supreme Court's decision was complicated and deeply divided, but ultimately they ruled that while affirmative action was legal, the use of fixed quotas was not. The case argued that quotas specifically set aside a certain number of places for minority candidates and this was in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Quotas are essentially benchmarks or fixed numbers that aim to ensure a certain level of diversity or representation within a group.
The implications of this ruling supported the continuation of affirmative action under certain conditions but prohibited any government-sponsored racial quotas since they could result in reverse discrimination. Bakke was eventually ordered to be admitted to the school. Subsequent cases and decisions, such as Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, have built upon the Bakke decision, further defining the legal landscape of affirmative action and race-conscious admissions policies.