The issue of race in America is now widely regarded as a socioeconomic issue whereas a few decades ago, racism was a more violent word. This is to say that race these days usually boils down to a debate as to how it determines a person’s opportunities in life. Affirmative action was created to help shift the equilibrium struck in the U.S. as far as statistics of African Americans working in high-paying professional environments are concerned. A consequence of this action was seen in the case Bakke v. UC Regents, a case in which medical schools were setting aside racial quotas and accepting this quota of African-American students even though it was proven that their test scores were generally lower (Abernathy 1233). These quotas are not just for either race and racial equality is ultimately set when race doesn’t play a factor in whether someone gets hired or accepted into a position. There has been a host of court cases in America dealing with this “Affirmative action” issue in colleges and graduate schools. A look at this progression will help people to understand where Affirmative action is today and how colleges accept students based on race.
Bakke v. UC Regents is an example case of a bigger issue in America about the fairness of affirmative action. This case is also what the first case to appear that really dealt with a racial bias as it was concerned to acceptance into a professional school. While affirmative action is not the reason in which this school set racial quotas, the idea behind setting it is the same as the idea behind affirmative action. With this information, the parallels may be considered almost identical. UC Regents refers to the governing board of the state medical schools in California. This particular case happened at the University of California, Davis, which is a state Medical School in Davis, California. Allan Bakke applied to UC Davis in 1973 and 1974 and was rejected both years. UC Davis stated that his GPA of 3.4 was not up to their standards and that most of the students they admitted had a GPA of 3.6. The school did admit to allowing certain “specially qualified” individuals into their school even though they had a lower GPA than Bakke. The school claimed that these individuals were allowed in because of racial or economic reasons (Pope et. al. 609). This “specially qualified” group had sixteen positions set aside that could not be filled by Caucasian students. Bakke did not find these reasons to be sufficient and he took the case to court citing the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment as his reason. UC Regents, who was in charge of setting this quota, argued that it was within their constitutional rights to do so.
The Supreme Court decided that it was not within the school’s right to do so and I agree. UC Davis set aside sixteen positions that could only be filled by minorities. This means that no matter who applies to that school, at least sixteen individuals would be admitted purely for the color of their skin. This is the kind of discrimination that was legally ended in this country when the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution. Ultimately, this case encourages discrimination because it involves discrimination.
The argument of adding diversity to the school like the University of Michigan Law School did in the case Grutter v. Bollinger, does not apply to UC Regents v. Bakke. Medical schools are there to train young men and women to become professional medical doctors, and having a diverse class there really should not make a difference in how well the students there are educated. Memorizing different diseases and treatments of those diseases will happen whether there are fifty minorities in the classroom or zero. Medicine does not need diversity because the information learned in medical school is not up for a debate that is added to by a diverse classroom.
The University of Michigan Law School had a follow up case that also dealt with the idea of affirmative action. This case was the previously mentioned case of Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), in which Michigan Law School used race as a factor for admitting minorities, but not the deciding factor as was done in UC Regents v. Bakke. Barbra Grutter who was a white female that was rejected from the law school, found that ethnic minorities who had lower test scores were being accepted. Grutter decided to take this case to court because she felt it was unfair. While the Supreme Court sided with the University, I would argue that this case still clearly involves a racial bias which is unacceptable. Racism should be completely outlawed no matter which race the racism is coming from. In this case, the school said that the increase in diversity created a better learning environment. I would argue that this increase in diversity comes at too high of a cost for ethnic minorities who would have had a high enough test score to get into the Law school regardless of race.
Affirmative action was started as a means of integrating minorities into the professional world. Most would agree that the idea behind Affirmative action is a good one, but it does have some unintended consequences. One of the most significant consequences that it has is the ripple effect of how letting minorities with lower GPA’s into professional schools translates into the real world. If the customer knows that minorities can get into medical school with greater ease than a Caucasian, it might stand to reason that the Caucasian is more qualified than the minority. This kind of thinking is unfair to the minority who had good enough credentials to get into the medical school without the boost of him being a minority. So, the minority who had the credentials to get into medical school regardless of race, will now be looked upon by his coworkers and his patients as someone who probably undeservingly got into the position that he is in.
This same line of logic is applicable to a minority who gets hired for a job because of Affirmative action. Because it is known by his/her coworkers and the customer that race plays a factor in being hired, some might come to the conclusion that other resumes might have been looked over so that this person could get the job. This puts the minority in a bad position because it is thought by their coworkers that they are possibly under qualified for the position. This is not the case every time and it is true that not all coworkers and customers will come to this conclusion, but if the company simply stated that race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. do not play a factor in whether or not someone gets hired, everyone there would potentially be the best qualified applicant for that position and would be respected as such.
Another court case at the University of Michigan illustrates the point being made in the previous two paragraphs. The case is Gratz v. Bollinger in which an undergraduate at the University of Michigan took the University to court over the affirmative action admissions policy in which the University used a points system that gave extra points to minority groups before even looking at their applications. This, again, shows that a school was treating certain groups better simply because of the color of their skin. This time the Supreme Court did not side with the school and the Supreme Court cited racial inequality as the reason.
The Supreme Court has decided, as shown by these three cases, that race can be a factor in a school’s decision for accepting a student, but the school may not set quotas or give them extra points. Some would argue that these quotas and point systems are valid ways of integrating minorities into society and these are valid arguments that must be addressed.
Some might say that affirmative action helps protect minority students who do not have legacy at institutions. Many white Americans attend colleges that their families have attended. This gives them an unfair advantage over minorities. However, if every school evaluated each student equally then minorities, if they meet the academic requirements, should have no problem getting into the school
Some might say that minorities usually are wealthy enough to be accepted. However, school care more about the money that you will make and less about the money that you have. For instance, if a student has the necessary intelligence, admissions staff can make a confident judgment that that student will become successful and earn enough money so as to have enough to donate to the school in the future.

White guilt
You don’t fight discrimination with more discrimination. The declaration of independence states that “All men are created equal,” therefore minorities should have equal access to college just like any other American. With affirmative action, minorities are given preferential treatment, so that those who are unqualified are given access to something that they, in a country where people are treated equally, should not have access to. Everyone has a the God given right to achieve what they work for; however, when minorities benefits from government intervention in the economy (welfare/ unemployment/ Medicaid) or in education (affirmative action) the fabric of American culture becomes complacent. People cry out to Uncle Sam when times get hard instead of working harder and smarter to achieve the American dreams.
The American dream, like money, does not grow on trees; it is something that is earned.