Gratz+v+Bollinger

Gratz v Bollinger, 2003

Two students, Gratz and Hamacher, applied for admission into University of Michigan's College of Literature, Arts, and Science with qualified GPAs and ACT scores. Both, however, were denied acceptance. The Center for Individual Rights filed a lawsuit on their behalf when it became known that University of Michigan awards 20 bonus points to three specific racial groups in order to increase diversity. Students must receive 100 out of 150 points on U Michigan's acceptance point scale to guarantee admission. The CIR argued that the University of Michigan violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that Gratz and Hamacher, both caucasian, were racially discriminated against.

Does the university's racial preferences for admission violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

The Supreme Court ruled that the University of Michigan's automatic point distribution to every underrepresented minority violated the Fourteenth Amendment and held that the system did not use individualized consideration in its applications as Justice Powell considered in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.

Catherine Vo