There are many alternative ways the government can promote equality within the educational system. .
In nineteen seventy-eight, there was a court case concerning affirmative action known as Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Allan Bakke, a student who failed to get into the University of California at Davis, sued the school for having what he considered an unlawful admissions process. Bakke claimed Davis discriminated against him because of race, which violates The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Intended to promote a diverse student body, Davis had sixteen out of their one-hundred seats reserved for those of Negro, Asian, or Chicano descent. In other words, if the remaining eighty-four spots were already filled up, an applicant lacking these specific options of ethnic background would not get in, regardless of how qualified he or she may have been for the seat. "No matter how strong their qualifications, quantitative and extracurricular, including their own potential for contribution to educational diversity, they are never afforded the chance to compete with applicants from the preferred groups for the special admissions seats" (320). .
Clearly, this system was not fair, and resulted in a reverse discrimination. Accordingly, the court sided with Bakke and deemed Davis's use of a quota system unconstitutional, considering it made race a predominant factor in accepting a portion of their students. Although this case lead to the abolishment of quota systems in college admission processes, affirmative action remains constitutional under certain specifications. A quota system is prohibited. "Instead, a university may consider race or ethnicity only as a 'plus', in a particular applicant's file, without insulat[ing] the individual from comparison with all other candidates for the available seats" "(Grutter 334). .
So what exactly does "plus " mean when referring to one's race in the eyes of a university? In the Supreme Court Case of Grutter v.