AFFIRMATIVE ACTION1960s and early 1970s, particularly after the assas-
sination of Martin Luther King.
The first affirmative action cases to reach the
Supreme Court challenged such programs of pref-
erence for black and other minority students. A
rejected Jewish applicant for admission to the
University of Washington Law School, which had
set a quota to increase the number of its minority
students, sued for admission, and his case reached
the Supreme Court. It did not rule on it. The
Court did rule on a subsequent case, in 1978, that
of Allan Bakke, a rejected applicant to the Univer-
sity of California, Davis, Medical School, which
also had set a quota. The Court, splitting into a
number of factions, rejected fixed numerical quo-
tas but asserted race was a factor that could be
taken into account in admissions decisions for
purposes of promoting academic diversity. Under
the protection offered by this complex decision,
most colleges and universities and professional
schools do grant preferences to black and Hispan-
ic students. Asian Americans, also considered a
minority, did not receive preference, but this was
hardly necessary since their academic achievement
is high. Indeed, by the 1980s, Asian American
students were protesting that it was more difficult
for them than whites to gain admission to selective
institutions (Bunzel and Au 1987).
Matters turned around in the mid-1990s. In
1995, the regents of the University of California
banned any consideration of race or ethnicity in
admission to the university. In 1996 the voters of
California approved the California Civil Rights
Initiative, which banned the use of race or ethnic
criteria in state government action, in employ-
ment and contracts as well as college admissions.
This initiative, launched by one academic and one
former academic, became the basis of a movement
to extend the ban on affirmative action. In 1998
the State of Washington became the second state
to pass such an initiative. In Texas, the assault on
affirmative action in admissions led to a wide-
ranging decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals in 1996 banning the use of race and
ethnicity in admissions to the University of Texas
Law School. This decision affects all institutions of
higher education in the states covered by the fifth
Circuit. Massive changes have followed in the ad-
missions procedures of the University of Califor-
nia, the peak institution in the system of public
higher education in California, and the University
of Texas, which holds a similar position in Texas.Initially, there were substantial drops in en-
rollment of black and Hispanic students, but ener-
getic action by the university administrations has
stemmed this fall-off, and the decline statistically is
not as drastic as originally projected or feared. The
commitment by university administrators to main-
tain a substantial representation of black and His-
panic students is so strong that they have devised
new admissions practices and procedures designed
to keep the number up, and have had some success
in doing so. Further, the Texas legislature has
voted that the top 10 percent of every high school
graduating class be eligible for admission to the
University of Texas, and the Board of Regents of
the University of California has similarly voted
that the top 4 percent of California high school
graduating classes should be eligible for enroll-
ment in the University of California. The effect of
such actions, in view of the high concentration of
black and Hispanic students in low-achieving high
schools, which ordinarily send few students to the
selective state institutions, is to keep up the num-
ber of black and Hispanic students.Affirmative action in admissions has become
perhaps the best-researched area of affirmative
action as a result of these controversies. An impor-
tant study by William Bowen and Derek Bok of
admissions procedures in selective institutions has
argued effectively that ‘‘race-sensitive’’ admissions
have been good for the students, good for the
institutions, and good for the country. Their con-
clusions, however, have been sharply disputed by
critics of affirmative action. (Bowen and Bok 1998;
Trow 1999). At this writing (Fall, 1999) the Su-
preme Court has not yet ruled on the issue of the
degree to which public colleges and universities
may take race into account. In view of the fact that
neither Congress nor state legislatures will take
decisive action on race preference owing to the
political sensitivity of the issue, it is clear the key
decisions in this area will have to be taken by the
Supreme Court. It is possible that the age of
affirmative action in American race relations and
race policy is coming to an end.Affirmative action has been a divisive issue in
American political life and has sometimes been
raised effectively in political campaigns. It has