Board of Regents v. Bakke Historical Overview

 We have two decades of African-American progress leading up to the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.

“Between 1960 and 1970, blacks and whites improved their socioeconomic status. Among both races, educational attainment increased, occupational distribution was upgraded, and real purchasing power rose markedly. In almost every comparison, the gains were somewhat greater among blacks than among whites and thus most indicators of racial differentiation declined”(The 1960s: A Decade of Progress for Blacks?). 

In 1963, in Martin Luther King Jr.'s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech he expressed “his faith that one day white and Black people would stand together as equals, and there would be harmony between the races”. This speech would go on to be one of the most influential speeches in history and “served as a defining moment for the civil rights movement, and he soon emerged as its most prominent figure” (Black History Milestones: Timeline). 

In July 1964, Congress signed the Civil Rights Act. “At its most basic level, the act gave the federal government more power to protect citizens against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex or national origin. It mandated the desegregation of most public accommodations, including lunch counters, bus depots, parks and swimming pools, and established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to ensure equal treatment of minorities in the workplace. The act also guaranteed equal voting rights by removing biased registration requirements and procedures and authorized the U.S. Office of Education to provide aid to assist with school desegregation” (Black History Milestones: Timeline). 

In August 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. “The Voting Rights Act sought to overcome the legal barriers that still existed at the state and local levels preventing Black citizens from exercising the right to vote given them by the 15th Amendment” (Black History Milestones: Timeline).

In the 1970s the advances of the civil rights movement combined with the feminist movement which created the African American women’s movement. “There can’t be liberation for half a race,” declared Margaret Sloan, one of the women behind the National Black Feminist Organization, founded in 1973. A year earlier, Representative Shirley Chisholm of New York became a national symbol of both movements as the first major party African-American candidate and the first female candidate for president of the United States”, “Chisholm became the first Black woman in Congress in 1968, when she was elected to the House from her Brooklyn district” (Black History Milestones: Timeline).

In the mind 1970s, “many universities were seeking to increase the presence of minority and female faculty and students on their campuses. The University of California at Davis, for example, designated 16 percent of its medical school’s admissions spots for minority applicants. After Allan Bakke, a white California man, applied twice without success, he sued U.C. Davis, claiming that his grades and test scores were higher than those of minority students who were admitted and accusing UC Davis of “reverse discrimination.” In June 1978, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of strict racial quotas was unconstitutional and that Bakke should be admitted; on the other hand, it held that institutions of higher education could rightfully use race as a criterion in admissions decisions in order to ensure diversity” (Black History Milestones: Timeline).