Regents of the University of California v. Bakke Moot Court

Today in the moot court my group and I debated the Bakke v Regents of the University of California that took place in the year 1978. In the Bakke v Regents of the University of California, 35 year old Allan Bakke sued University of California at Davis Medical School for having a minority program that reserved 16 out of 100 spots for minorities.  Bakke had applied to 12 Medical schools and had been denied from all them even though he had significantly higher MCAT scores than the minorities in the minority program and  had a 3.5 grade point average.  After being denied a second time from the University of California at Davis Medical School, Bakke decided to go to court and sue the school for violating Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fourteenth Amendment   equal protection clause.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~jesan20l/classweb/pictures/Bakke.jpg

During the moot court the legal team representing Bakke used these documents to justify that the minority program’s use of quotas was unconstitutional. They also argued that Bakke had a higher GPA and significantly higher MCAT scores than the minorities. My team argued that the majority of students in the program were white and in this period of time there was a need for minority doctors since 2.1 percent of the U.S.’s population had black doctors at the time. We also argued that the program was established for disadvantage minorities. We stated how Bakke was indeed not disadvantaged since he had a stable job and a home of his own. After debating for 20 minutes, the judge ruled in Bakke’s favor for having more valid documents and making better arguments.