82 Human Resources Management for Public and Nonprofi t Organizations
around them. ”... The policy aspires to “ achieve that diversity
which has the potential to enrich everyone ’ s education and thus
make a law school class stronger than the sum of its parts. ”... We
have held that all racial classifi cations imposed by the government
“ must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny. ” This
means that such classifi cations are constitutional only if they are
narrowly tailored to further compelling governmental interests....
To be narrowly tailored, a race - conscious admissions program cannot
use a quota system.... Instead a university may consider race or
ethnicity more fl exibly as a “ plus ” factor in the context of indi-
vidualized consideration of each and every applicant.... The Law
School engages in a highly individualized, holistic review of each
applicant ’ s fi le, giving serious consideration to all the ways an applicant
might contribute to a diverse educational environment... In order
to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry,
it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented
and qualifi ed individuals of every race and ethnicity.In Gratz v. Bollinger , however, the Court found the University of Michigan ’ s
undergraduate affi rmative action admission program unconstitutional.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the majority, stated, “ The
university ’ s policy which automatically distributes 20 points, or one - fi fth
of the points needed to guarantee admission, to every single underrepre-
sented minority applicant solely because of race, is not narrowly tailored
to achieve the interest in the educational diversity. ” In essence, the Court
ruled that race and ethnicity may be taken into account as a “ plus factor ”
when making admission decisions, but limited how much a factor race can
play in the selection of students.
Several other federal court decisions concerning affi rmative action
have been especially important. One case addressed affi rmative action and
the granting of federal contracts, and the second case dealt with af-
fi rmative action and law school admission policies. In Adarand Constructors
v. Pena (1995), the Supreme Court ruled that federal programs that use
race or ethnicity as a basis for decision making must be strictly scrutinized
to ensure that they promote compelling government interest and they
are narrowly tailored to serve those interests. Federal affi rmative action
programs giving preferences to minorities are subject to the same strict
scrutiny applied to state and local programs.
In Hopwood et al. v. State of Texas et al. (1996), the Fifth Circuit Court
of Appeals struck down the University of Texas Law School affi rmative