The Law: What Rights for Whites?

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Bakke is not the only victim to cry halt. A number of others have also gone to court with charges of reverse discrimination. Among them:

¶ Brian Weber of Reserve, La., who was passed over for a Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. training program. Kaiser had signed an agreement with the United Steel Workers specifying that for every white given a craft, job, one black would also be selected. On Weber's motion, a district judge enjoined the agreement.

¶ Don Prince, 28, who lost a chance three years ago to become the youngest sergeant in Detroit police history when an affirmative-action plan led to selection of lower-ranking blacks. Prince, along with two other whites, is currently challenging the plan in federal court.

¶ James Cramer, 31, who claimed Virginia Commonwealth University refused to consider a white male for a teaching job. A federal judge ruled in his favor.

Most observers believe the Supreme Court's ruling on Bakke, expected next year, will not be broad enough to encompass all reverse-discrimination cases. In last week's oral arguments, at least four Justices indicated that the case could be decided on narrow grounds, i.e., limited to Bakke alone. The case could be sent back to California courts because the record is inadequate (as a much argued over Justice Department brief urged), or the court might rule that a limited state or federal law governed the case. As Justice William Brennan reminded Attorney Colvin, "Ordinarily we don't decide constitutional questions" if another, less sweeping ground is available. Another possible ruling—and one that could result in Allan Bakke's admission, at 38, to the freshman medical class at Davis next fall—would hold that racial quotas are not permissible, but that universities may use race as one factor in future admissions policy. That scenario was suggested from the bench by Justice Powell.

But though the Burger Court is widely regarded as conservative, the general tide of relevant court opinions runs against Bakke. The court has tended to take a flexible view of the equal-protection clause, recognizing that extraordinary steps must occasionally be taken to enforce the basic point of the 14th Amendment: protecting blacks. Even racial quotas have sometimes been authorized to remedy proven discrimination.

On a broader scale, the court has shown increasing reluctance to settle questions better left to "the normal processes of democracy [such as legislatures or regents boards]." It has at times declined, in cases involving schools, to second-guess educational professionals. Cox encouraged that approach, urging the Justices to leave the details of experimentation in race conciliation matters to local experts. The diversity of states and their universities is "one of the greatest sources of creativity in this country," he said.

The Bakke case raises questions that are exquisitely complicated. What is the meaning of equal opportunity? How much help should any person or race receive from the Government to atone for past disadvantage? Can any citizen be held back so that others can catch up? And are the courts best fitted to settle these questions? No matter how the Supreme Court answers, Bakke will leave many problems still to be resolved through the creativity and good will of a society committed to equality for all its citizens. -