Gratz v. Bollinger

In Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), White applicants who were not admitted as undergraduates to the University of Michigan filed suit claiming racial discrimination. In a companion case, Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), another plaintiff challenged the University of Michigan Law School admissions process. Both cases drew extensive media coverage, as approximately 100 amicus (friend of the court) briefs were filed by a variety of organizations to provide the Supreme Court with additional evidence and arguments. The Supreme Court threw out the undergraduate policy (Gratz), while sustaining the other (Grutter).

Gratz and Grutter were controversial because the undergraduate and law school admissions policies at the University of Michigan included voluntary race-based affirmative action to ensure the educational benefits of a diverse student body. Both cases raised the question of whether diversity was an important enough educational goal that the race of applicants could be considered during the admissions process. In Gratz, the Supreme Court ruled that diversity is a compelling [Page 401]interest in higher education. However, the Court ruled that the University's Office of Undergraduate Admissions (OUA) award of a predetermined 20 points for being an underrepresented minority violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution because it did not include a significant individualized review of applications.