The Courts v. Self-Government

On February 22 of this year the U. S. Supreme Court announced that sometime during its next term, beginning October 1, it will hear an appeal of the Regents of the University of California from a decision made last year by the California Supreme Court. In that decision the State court ruled that Mr. Allan Bakke, a white student now in his mid-thirties, was unjustly denied admission to the medical school of the University of California at Davis in 1973 and 1974, since students whose academic records were demonstrably inferior to Mr. Bakke’s were preferentially accepted under a special admission program. That program, initiated in 1970, reserved 16 of one hundred openings for “disadvantaged” members of racial or ethnic minorities who were judged fully qualified to satisfactorily complete medical studies, though their undergraduate grades were not competitive with other applicants’. The program’s objectives were, first, to promote aspiration for, and access to, medical careers previously denied such students by disadvantageous socioeconomic circumstances; and second, to diversify—and thereby enrich—both the student body and the medical profession. But whatever the objectives, the program, Mr. Bakke charged, was racially biased against him, depriving him of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Upon learning that the State court’s ruling in Mr. Bakke’s favor would be reviewed, Supreme Court observers immediately anticipated a landmark decision on the constitutionality of what critics of preferential admission consider “reverse discrimination.”

When the California courts ruled against the Regents of the University, students and civil rights groups angrily insisted that the University had not prosecuted the case vigorously, and one state legislator reportedly predicted that the appeal in Washington would also be lost because the handling of the case had been “less than competent.” On March 14, however, the University of California announced that it had retained Archibald Cox—renowned Watergate Special Prosecutor, Solicitor General of the United States during 1961-65, and professor at Harvard Law School since 1965—to serve as general counsel to the University’s legal team and to present oral arguments before the Supreme Court. Henceforth, few would question the competence or commitment of the legal talent, but anyone suspecting that Mr. Cox is mere window-dressing has yet to read The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government, a thin but lucidly perceptive book which originated as four lectures at All Souls College, Oxford, early in 1975.

PC

About the Author

Paul H. Connolly

On February 22 of this year the U. S. Supreme Court announced that sometime during its next term, beginning October 1, it will hear an appeal of the Regents of the University of California from a decision made last year by the California Supreme Court. In that decision the State court ruled that Mr. Allan Bakke, a white student now in his mid-thirties, was unjustly denied admission to the medical school of the University of California at Davis in 1973 and 1974, since students whose academic records were demonstrably inferior to Mr. Bakke’s were preferentially accepted under a special admission program. That program, initiated in 1970, reserved 16 of one hundred openings for “disadvantaged” members of racial or ethnic minorities who were judged fully qualified to satisfactorily complete medical studies, though their undergraduate grades were not competitive with other applicants’. The program’s objectives were, first, to promote aspiration for, and access to, medical careers previously denied such students by disadvantageous socioeconomic circumstances; and second, to diversify—and thereby enrich—both the student body and the medical profession. But whatever the objectives, the program, Mr. Bakke charged, was racially biased against him, depriving him of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Upon learning that the State court’s ruling in Mr. Bakke’s favor would be reviewed, Supreme Court observers immediately anticipated a landmark decision on the constitutionality of what critics of preferential admission consider “reverse discrimination.”

When the California courts ruled against the Regents of the University, students and civil rights groups angrily insisted that the University had not prosecuted the case vigorously, and one state legislator reportedly predicted that the appeal in Washington would also be lost because the handling of the case had been “less than competent.” On March 14, however, the University of California announced that it had retained Archibald Cox—renowned Watergate Special Prosecutor, Solicitor General of the United States during 1961-65, and professor at Harvard Law School since 1965—to serve as general counsel to the University’s legal team and to present oral arguments before the Supreme Court. Henceforth, few would question the competence or commitment of the legal talent, but anyone suspecting that Mr. Cox is mere window-dressing has yet to read The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government, a thin but lucidly perceptive book which originated as four lectures at All Souls College, Oxford, early in 1975.