Affirmative Action

In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that UC Davis was not allowed to have quotas that specified the number of minorities to be accepted to their school. The Supreme Court also ruled, as a compromise, that the school could consider .
             race when determining whether a minority applicant would be accepted or not- all supposedly without quotas. This compromise can also be known as a form of Affirmative Action. This ruling formed the basis for admissions in California for seventeen years, until 1995 when the University of California Board of Regents and California voters banned affirmative action in UC schools. California was not the only state to ban affirmative action; states like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Washington have followed in California's footsteps. (Franz ) Even today, many states still use some shape or form of affirmative action, but affirmative action is becoming less and less popular among colleges across the nation. Presently the case of Gatz v. Michigan, ask the Supreme Court whether race should be a factor in acceptance to the University of Michigan. Gatz and a companion are representing all of the students who feel that they were not accepted into the school because the school was using race as a determining factor to get into the college. Gatz and the other plaintiffs use the Fourteenth Amendment and Title IV of the Civil Rights Act, which they feel were violated, as their support in the case. (Hartigan 47).
             Even though California has banned affirmative action, "such facilities as the UC schools are seeing the same percent of minority students as they did before 209 was passed". (Franz) This shows that UC schools still have the idea of ethnic diversity etched into their minds, and are still using the principle of affirmative action with out calling it that. (Interracial 32) So, if a white American and a minority apply to a UC school, the minority applicant will most likely be chosen because the school has ethnic quotas.