Title: Grutter v. Bollinger et al., 156 L. Ed. 2d 694, 2003 U.S. LEXIS 5357 (U.S., 2003).

Parties: Plaintiff: Barbara Grutter: Defendants: Lee Bollinger.

Court: Supreme Court of the United States.

Procedural posture: The case is before the Supreme Court of the United States after the plaintiff, Barbara Grutter, filed a suit alleging that respondents had discriminated against her on the basis of race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and 42 U.S.C. 42 U.S.C. § 1981.

Facts: In 1997, Barbara Grutter, a white resident of Michigan, applied for admission to the University of Michigan Law School. Grutter applied with a 3.8 undergraduate GPA and an LSAT score of 161. She was denied admission. …show more content…
In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the Law School's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. The Court reasoned that, because the Law School conducts highly individualized review of each applicant, no acceptance or rejection is based automatically on a variable such as race and that this process ensures that all factors that may contribute to diversity are meaningfully considered alongside race. Justice O'Connor wrote, "in the context of its individualized inquiry into the possible diversity contributions of all applicants, the Law School's race-conscious admissions program does not unduly harm nonminority applicants."

2) Yes. Diversity is a compelling interest that can justify the narrowly tailored use of race when public universities select applicants for admission. In this case, the Law School’s (Defendant) admissions program bears the hallmarks of a narrowly tailored plan. Narrow tailoring does not require exhaustion of every conceivable race-neutral alternative and it does not require a university to choose between maintaining a reputation for excellence and fulfilling a commitment to provide educational opportunities to members of all racial …show more content…
Stripped of its “critical mass” veil, the program is revealed as an obvious effort to achieve racial balancing. As the numbers demonstrate, the Defendant plainly employs racial preferences in extending offers of admission. It engages in precisely the type of racial balancing that the Court itself calls “patently unconstitutional.”

(Kennedy, J.) The Law School (Defendant) has not demonstrated how individual consideration is, or can be, preserved at this stage of the application process given the instruction to attain what it calls critical mass.

(Scalia, J.) Unlike a clear constitutional holding that racial preferences in state educational institutions are not permitted, or even a clear anticonstitutional holding, today’s decision seems willfully designed to prolong the controversy and the litigation. The Constitution proscribes government discrimination on the basis of race and state-provided education is no exception.

(Thomas, J.) I believe blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators. The majority upholds the Law School’s (Defendant) racial discrimination not by interpreting the people’s Constitution, but by responding to a faddish slogan of the cognoscenti.