ABSTRACT
Prologue: From Bakke to Grutter In the early 1970s, Allan Bakke unsuccessfully sought admission to the medical school at the University of California at Davis. The medical school had developed an affirmative action program that reserved at least 16 admission slots for students of color. The program was developed in 1973 to increase the representation of African Americans, Mexican Americans, and American Indians, who were conspicuously absent from the entering classes ever since the medical school opened in 1968. Bakke, a white applicant, sued on the grounds that his exclusion from competition for the 16 reserved seats constituted a violation the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as the state and U.S. Constitution. He claimed that he was a victim of “reverse discrimination.”
