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Recent Publications, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Bakke, DeFunis, and Minority Admissions: The Quest for Equal Opportunity

By Allan P. Sindler.

Sindler describes the admissions programs at the Universities of Washington and California-Davis, and the respective experiences of Marco DeFunis and Allan Bakke that preceded their litigation. Then, documenting the disparity in academic qualifications between accepted minorities and rejected nonminorities, Sindler addresses the broad issue before the courts. Is the reservation of academic "places" for minorities an inherently two-track system, which operates as an illegal quota to exclude "better-qualified" applicants; or may a school utilize race as a basis for selection in order to fulfill other commitments …