Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)
Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)
539 U.S. 244
Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher, both white residents of Michigan, applied for admission to the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) in 1995 and 1997, respectively. Although the LSA considered Gratz to be well qualified and Hamacher to be within the qualified range, both were denied admission, based on the written guidelines of the university’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions (OUA). These guidelines spelled out the weight the OUA would give to a number of factors in making admissions decisions, including high school grades, standardized test scores, high school quality, curriculum strength, geography, alumni relationships, leadership, and race. Although the OUA changed these guidelines a number of times during the period relevant to this litigation, during the entire period the university considered African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans to be “underrepresented minorities,” and none of the parties disputed that the university admitted virtually every qualified applicant from these groups. The OUA current guidelines when this case went to trial used a selection method under which every applicant from an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority group was automatically awarded twenty points of the one hundred needed to guarantee admission.
Gratz and Hamacher brought a class action in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on behalf of all individuals who applied for and were denied admission to the LSA for academic year 1995 and forward and who were members of racial or ethnic groups that respondents treated less favorably on the basis of race. Alleging that the university’s use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and 42 U.S.C. §1981, they sought compensatory and punitive damages for past violations, declaratory relief finding that the University of Michigan violated their rights to nondiscriminatory treatment, and an injunction prohibiting it from continuing to discriminate on the basis of race. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the university relied on Justice Powell’s principal opinion in Regents of University of California v. Bakke (1978), which expressed the view that the consideration of race as a factor in admissions might in some cases serve a compelling governmental interest. Respondents contended that the LSA had just such an interest in the educational benefits that result from having a racially and ethnically diverse student body and that its program was narrowly tailored to serve that interest. The district court held that the LSA’s current admissions guidelines awarding twenty points for membership in an underrepresented minority group were consistent with Powell’s language in Bakke and granted the university summary judgment on the constitutionality of its use of the current guidelines. However, concerning the LSA’s guidelines for the years 1995 through 1998 that actually “reserved” seats for underrepresented minority applicants, the Court found that they had operated as the functional equivalent of a quota and ran afoul of Powell’s Bakke opinion; it therefore granted the petitioners summary judgment with respect to the university’s admission programs for those years. While appeals were pending in the Sixth Circuit, that court issued an opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger (2002), upholding the admissions program used by the university’s law school. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases, even though the Sixth Circuit had not yet rendered judgment in this one.
Opinion of the Court: Rehnquist, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas.
Concurring opinions: O’Connor, Breyer (in part); Thomas.
Concurring in the judgment: Breyer.
Dissenting opinions: Stevens, Souter; Souter, Ginsburg; Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer (in part).
THE CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case to decide whether “the University of Michigan’s use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or 42 U.S.C. §1981.” Because we find that the manner in which the University considers the race of applicants in its undergraduate admissions guidelines violates these constitutional and statutory provisions, we reverse that portion of the District Court’s decision upholding the guidelines….
Petitioners argue, first and foremost, that the University’s use of race in undergraduate admissions violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, they contend that this Court has only sanctioned the use of racial classifications to remedy identified discrimination, a justification on which respondents have never relied. Petitioners further argue that “diversity as a basis for employing racial preferences is simply too open-ended, ill-defined, and indefinite to constitute a compelling interest capable of supporting narrowly-tailored means.” But for the reasons set forth today in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the Court has rejected these arguments of petitioners.
Petitioners alternatively argue that even if the University’s interest in diversity can constitute a compelling state interest, the District Court erroneously concluded that the University’s use of race in its current freshman admissions policy is narrowly tailored to achieve such an interest. Petitioners argue that the guidelines the University began using in 1999 do not “remotely resemble the kind of consideration of race and ethnicity that Justice Powell endorsed in Bakke.” Respondents reply that the University’s current admissions program is narrowly tailored and avoids the problems of the Medical School of the University of California at Davis program (U. C. Davis) rejected by Justice Powell. They claim that their program “hews closely” to both the admissions program described by Justice Powell as well as the Harvard College admissions program that he endorsed. Specifically, respondents contend that the LSA’s policy provides the individualized consideration that “Justice Powell considered a hallmark of a constitutionally appropriate admissions program.” For the reasons set out below, we do not agree.
It is by now well established that “all racial classifications reviewable under the Equal Protection Clause must be strictly scrutinized.” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña (1995). This “‘standard of review … is not dependent on the race of those burdened or benefited by a particular classification.’” Thus, “any person, of whatever race, has the right to demand that any governmental actor subject to the Constitution justify any racial classification subjecting that person to unequal treatment under the strictest of judicial scrutiny.”
To withstand our strict scrutiny analysis, respondents must demonstrate that the University’s use of race in its current admission program employs “narrowly tailored measures that further compelling governmental interests.” Because “racial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification,” our review of whether such requirements have been met must entail “‘a most searching examination.’” We find that the University’s policy, which automatically distributes 20 points, or one-fifth of the points needed to guarantee admission, to every single “underrepresented minority” applicant solely because of race, is not narrowly tailored to achieve the interest in educational diversity that respondents claim justifies their program….
Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke emphasized the importance of considering each particular applicant as an individual, assessing all of the qualities that individual possesses, and in turn, evaluating that individual’s ability to contribute to the unique setting of higher education. The admissions program Justice Powell described, however, did not contemplate that any single characteristic automatically ensured a specific and identifiable contribution to a university’s diversity. Instead, under the approach Justice Powell described, each characteristic of a particular applicant was to be considered in assessing the applicant’s entire application.
The current LSA policy does not provide such individualized consideration. The LSA’s policy automatically distributes 20 points to every single applicant from an “underrepresented minority” group, as defined by the University. The only consideration that accompanies this distribution of points is a factual review of an application to determine whether an individual is a member of one of these minority groups. Moreover, unlike Justice Powell’s example, where the race of a “particular black applicant” could be considered without being decisive, the LSA’s automatic distribution of 20 points has the effect of making “the factor of race … decisive” for virtually every minimally qualified underrepresented minority applicant….
Respondents contend that “the volume of applications and the presentation of applicant information make it impractical for [LSA] to use the … admissions system” upheld by the Court today in Grutter. But the fact that the implementation of a program capable of providing individualized consideration might present administrative challenges does not render constitutional an otherwise problematic system. Nothing in Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke signaled that a university may employ whatever means it desires to achieve the stated goal of diversity without regard to the limits imposed by our strict scrutiny analysis.
We conclude, therefore, that because the University’s use of race in its current freshman admissions policy is not narrowly tailored to achieve respondents’ asserted compelling interest in diversity, the admissions policy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We further find that the admissions policy also violates Title VI and 42 U.S.C. §1981. Accordingly, we reverse that portion of the District Court’s decision granting respondents summary judgment with respect to liability and remand the case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins, dissenting.
… The cases now contain two pointers toward the line between the valid and the unconstitutional in race-conscious admissions schemes. Grutter reaffirms the permissibility of individualized consideration of race to achieve a diversity of students, at least where race is not assigned a preordained value in all cases. On the other hand, Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke rules out a racial quota or set-aside, in which race is the sole fact of eligibility for certain places in a class. Although the freshman admissions system here is subject to argument on the merits, I think it is closer to what Grutterapproves than to what Bakke condemns, and should not be held unconstitutional on the current record.
The record does not describe a system with a quota like the one struck down in Bakke, which “insulated” all nonminority candidates from competition from certain seats. The Bakke plan “focused solelyon ethnic diversity” and effectively told nonminority applicants that “no matter how strong their qualifications, quantitative and extracurricular, including their own potential for contribution to educational diversity, they are never afforded the chance to compete with applicants from the preferred groups for the [set-aside] special admissions seats.”
The plan here, in contrast, lets all applicants compete for all places and values an applicant’s offering for any place not only on grounds of race, but on grades, test scores, strength of high school, quality of course of study, residence, alumni relationships, leadership, personal character, socioeconomic disadvantage, athletic ability, and quality of a personal essay. A nonminority applicant who scores highly in these other categories can readily garner a selection index exceeding that of a minority applicant who gets the 20-point bonus….
The very nature of a college’s permissible practice of awarding value to racial diversity means that race must be considered in a way that increases some applicants’ chances for admission. Since college admission is not left entirely to inarticulate intuition, it is hard to see what is inappropriate in assigning some stated value to a relevant characteristic, whether it be reasoning ability, writing style, running speed, or minority race. Justice Powell’s plus factors necessarily are assigned some values. The college simply does by a numbered scale what the law school accomplishes in its “holistic review”; the distinction does not imply that applicants to the undergraduate college are denied individualized consideration or a fair chance to compete on the basis of all the various merits their applications may disclose.
Nor is it possible to say that the 20 points convert race into a decisive factor comparable to reserving minority places as in Bakke. Of course we can conceive of a point system in which the “plus” factor given to minority applicants would be so extreme as to guarantee every minority applicant a higher rank than every nonminority applicant in the university’s admissions system. But petitioners do not have a convincing argument that the freshman admissions system operates this way. The present record obviously shows that nonminority applicants may achieve higher selection point totals than minority applicants owing to characteristics other than race, and the fact that the university admits “virtually every qualified under-represented minority applicant” may reflect nothing more than the likelihood that very few qualified minority applicants apply, as well as the possibility that self-selection results in a strong minority applicant pool. It suffices for me, as it did for the District Court, that there are no Bakke-like set-asides….
… In contrast to the college’s forthrightness in saying just what plus factor it gives for membership in an underrepresented minority, it is worth considering the character of one alternative thrown up as preferable, because supposedly not based on race. Drawing on admissions systems used at public universities in California, Florida, and Texas, the United States contends that Michigan could get student diversity in satisfaction of its compelling interest by guaranteeing admission to a fixed percentage of the top students from each high school in Michigan.
While there is nothing unconstitutional about such a practice, it nonetheless suffers from a serious disadvantage. It is the disadvantage of deliberate obfuscation. The “percentage plans” are just as race conscious as the point scheme (and fairly so), but they get their racially diverse results without saying directly what they are doing or why they are doing it. In contrast, Michigan states its purpose directly and, if this were a doubtful case for me, I would be tempted to give Michigan an extra point of its own for its frankness. Equal protection cannot become an exercise in which the winners are the ones who hide the ball.
JUSTICE GINSBURG, with whom JUSTICE SOUTER joins [and JUSTICE BREYER joins in part], dissenting.
Educational institutions, the Court acknowledges, are not barred from any and all consideration of race when making admissions decisions. But the Court once again maintains that the same standard of review controls judicial inspection of all official race classifications. This insistence on “consistency” would be fitting were our Nation free of the vestiges of rank discrimination long reinforced by law. But we are not far distant from an overtly discriminatory past, and the effects of centuries of law-sanctioned inequality remain painfully evident in our communities and schools.
… Actions designed to burden groups long denied full citizenship stature are not sensibly ranked with measures taken to hasten the day when entrenched discrimination and its after effects have been extirpated…. [W]here race is considered “for the purpose of achieving equality,” no automatic proscription is in order….
Examining in this light the admissions policy employed by the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and for the reasons well stated by Justice Souter, I see no constitutional infirmity.