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Show HINCKLEY JOURNAL OF POLITICS SPRING 2001 mative action college admission program is a dual admissions process, in which a certain number of seats are set-aside for minority applicants. This program is a quota-based system and differs from the previous program in that all seats set aside for minority applicants are filled (Ball 2000, 9). COURT RULINGS ON THE USE OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN ADMISSIONS DECISIONS ODEGAARD v. DEFUNIS 1971 In the early 1970s the University of Washington was a leader in the academic community with regard to their newly implemented admissions policy that took applicants' race and ethnicity into account. Their use of race as a positive factor illustrates a key legal question regarding the use of positive and negative racial classifications. The University of Washington employed three general criteria in their new law school admissions policy. 1) The past academic performance of the applicant including the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) score; the undergraduate grade point average (GPA); the quality of the undergraduate institution the applicant attended; grades in difficult courses; and the applicant's predicted first year average (PFYA) based on grades in their junior and senior year. 2) The applicant's ability to "make significant contributions to law school classrooms and the community at large." 3) The applicant's "social or ethnic background," as "one factor in the admission committee's assessment of the likelihood of the applicant's successfully graduating from law school" (Ball 2000, 23). To be automatically admitted, an applicant's PFYA had to be 7 7 or higher, with the highest possible PFYA score being 81. An applicant with a PFYA score of 74-5 or less was rejected. However, University of Washington School of Law (UWSL) treated two groups differently: those considered "returning military veterans who had at one time been admitted but then were called for military service" and "applicants from one of four identified minority groups: African-American, Hispanic-American, Native-American, and Philippine-American" (Ball 2000, 24). The committee randomly distributed white and non-preferred minority applicants to committee members. Individual committee members used the PFYA index as the major guide in making their recommendation to the committee that the applicant be admitted, rejected, or held for possible placement on a waiting list. However, "the applicant screening process provided special treatment to preferred minority applicants" (Ball 2000, 24). Committee members considered preferred minority applicants' files separately and their files were not distributed randomly. For example, African-Americans' files went to an African American law school student and a faculty committee member who had previously worked in a university program for disadvantaged students, thus resulting in a dual admissions policy. Marco DeFunis applied to UWSL in 1970 and was reject- ed. In 1971 he applied again as one of 1,600 applicants competing for 150 seats. Though DeFunis had a PFYA of 76.23 he was initially placed on a wait-list and then rejected. 48 percent of the minority applicants that were considered in the special category that year were admitted, although most scored below the 74.5 cut off point for those considered in the regular admissions process, or non-minority applicants. Of the 150 applicants admitted to UWSL that year, 44 were minority students, a significant number considering that minorities only made up four percent of the applicant pool. It is important to note that DeFunis had a higher PFYA than 38 special minority students. In 1971, DeFunis levied a lawsuit against UWSL alleging that their admissions policy violated his right to the equal protection of the laws and was therefore a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. DeFunis argued that race could not be the determining factor in university admissions and as such was also in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Ball 2000, 22). Furthermore, DeFunis argued that UWSL's policy required "strict scrutiny" by the courts to determine whether or not the affirmative action program served a "compelling interest." DeFunis also argued that "there was no record of the UWSL ever deliberately discriminating against racial and ethnic minorities. Therefore, there was no compelling interest warranting the use of racial goals in the law school admissions process" (Ball 2000, 25). Thus, if it was determined that UWSL had not previously deliberately discriminated against racial and ethnic minorities, then was UWSL's goal of increasing minority enrollment and representation in their law school and the legal profession a "compelling interest" that justified the use of racial goals in the admissions process? Slade Gorton, the state Attorney General, arguing in behalf of the University of Washington, asserted that UW did have a compelling state interest in overcoming the negative consequences of past racial and ethnic discrimination across America. In 1970, less than two percent of those practicing law were African Americans. Gorton argued that there was a "compelling interest" to diversify the law school, as well as the legal profession (Ball 2000, 26). At the core of both DeFunis and UW's legal claims lay the issue of racial and ethnic classification. Both agreed that racial or ethnic classifications could be factors in university admissions, but the parties disagreed on whether the Fourteenth Amendment barred benign or positive racial classification. In a certain sense, one of the central disagreements was founded upon the notion of negative and positive racial and ethnic classifications. Is there a difference between positive and negative racial discrimination? This question lies at the heart of the debate between proponents and opponents of affirmative action. Judge Lloyd Shorett of the Superior Court for King County upheld DeFunis's claim that he had been denied equal protection under the law. Judge Shorett quoted from the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education opinion stating, |