Case Study: Grutter v. Bollinger - Affirmative Action and Diversity

This case study analyzes the Grutter v. Bollinger Supreme Court case, focusing on the University of Michigan Law School's admission policies and allegations of racial discrimination. Barbara Grutter, a white applicant, claimed the university's affirmative action policies violated the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Supreme Court ruled that using race as one factor in admissions to achieve diversity was constitutional, upholding the precedent set in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. However, dissenting justices argued that the Law School's policy was an unconstitutional attempt to achieve racial balance. The analysis concludes that admissions should be based solely on educational criteria, not race, to ensure equal treatment under the law, especially within the educational sector.

Running head: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Case:
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003)
Facts of the case:
The main matter of issue of the case is the racial discrimination that was alleged to be
practiced in the University of Michigan Law School (Davenport, Howard & Harrington Weston,
2018). The University denied the admission of Barbara Grutter who was a white Michigan
resident having the required qualifications of 3.8 GPA and a 161 LSAT score. She then filed a
suit alleging that the University had rejected her admission by discriminating her based on her
race violating the 14th Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and also 42U.S.C. §
1981. The 14th Amendment forbids the States from denying equal protection of law to any person
within its territorial jurisdiction. She also argued that she was not given admission as the
University considers race as a predominant criterion as they allowed applicants from a particular
minority section a better opportunity than those from disfavored race.
However, the University argued that they are bound to consider the state interest to
ensure the presence of students from minority sections like African Americans and Hispanics in
the student category (Magstadt, 2016). They even argued that they adopted this procedure to
provide sufficient opportunities to all categories of students specially the minority race students
such that they do not feel separated and isolated, thereby giving better educational benefits to all.

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CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Opinion of the Supreme Court:
In this case, the Supreme court by the majority number of judges ruled that the usage of
affirmative action in admission to the Law School is constitutional as it considers race as one of
the factors and its main objective is to achieve diversity in the school. Thus by the majority
ruling, upheld the decision given in the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438
U.S. 265 (1978) that permitted the use of racism as a criterion in the admission procedure but
also denied the quota to be illegal.
Dissenting opinion:
Chief Justice Rehnquist, together with Justice Thomas, Justice Scalia and Justice
Kennedy however dissented from the majority decision and held that the admission policy used
by the Law School was intended to achieve a racial balance by an unconstitutional manner and it
was violating the Equal Protection Clause (Davenport, Howard & Harrington Weston, 2018).
The basis of the dissent is concerned with the disbelief in the claim made by the law school that
such discrimination system was needed to maintain number of minority student to allow a
diversified educational scenario.
My Opinion:
From the discussion made above, it can be held that the dissenting opinion given by Chief
Justice Rehnquist, together with Justice Thomas, Justice Scalia and Justice Kennedy was more
practical in the present day situation as admission to use should only be done on the basis of
educational criterion and not considering factors like race. People must be treated equally in the
society as well as in the eye of law. Racial factor cannot be taken as an advantage over others. In

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CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
today’s world, discrimination on the basis of race is an degrading factor which must not be
allowed at any cost specially in the educational sector where education should be the only
consideration.

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CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
References:
Davenport, E. K., Howard, B., & Harrington Weston, S. (2018). An Examination of the Effect of
the University of Michigan Cases on the Complexion of Higher Education. Alabama
Journal of Educational Leadership, 5, 29-38.
Magstadt, T. M. (2016). Understanding politics: Ideas, institutions, and issues. Cengage
Learning.
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).