The need to harmonize conflicting decisions reached by Circuit Courts of Appeals on the same or similar issues is one of the criteria used by the Supreme Court when deciding which cases to hear. The following gives perspective on the Supreme Court’s role in harmonizing the decisions of lower courts, when necessary.
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003)
Public universities have a compelling interest in using a narrow consideration of race in the admission process to achieve diversity.
Barbara Grutter was ultimately denied admission to the University of Michigan Law School, although her grades and test scores were sufficient for admission. She blamed her denial on the law school’s attempt to promote diversity. To achieve a diverse environment, the law school considered an applicant’s race as one of several factors in the admissions decision. She sued the law school claiming that any consideration of race by a public university in the admissions process violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. District Court concluded that the use of race as a factor in the admissions process to achieve a diverse learning environment violated the Equal Protection Clause, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. The Sixth Circuit held that promoting diversity was a compelling state interest that could permit a narrow consideration of race by state universities during the admission’s process.
Two other Circuits came to different conclusions on this matter:
• Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F.3d 932 (5th Cir. 1996) Diversity is not a justification for a narrow consideration of race in the admissions process;
• Smith v. University of Washington Law School, 233 F.3d 1188 (9th Cir. 2000) Diversity is a justification for narrow consideration of race in the admissions process.
In light of the different outcomes, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in these cases to harmonize the law in this area. The Court agreed with the 6th and 9th Circuits and held that a narrow consideration of race in a public university’s admissions process was permissible because the state had a compelling interest in promoting diversity. The majority noted that law schools train a large portion of individuals who become leaders in society and therefore it is important that all viewpoints be heard.
The majority also noted that achieving diversity was only one of several factors that were considered in the admissions process, and even the term “diversity” did not solely include race, but also socio-economic background and other characteristics. Finally, the majority noted that the consideration of race to promote diversity should not have an open-ended lifespan, but should eventually come to an end once a diverse environment was achieved. The dissent argued that any consideration of race by a public university in the admissions process violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Differences Among the Circuit Courts:
In the Grutter decision, Justice O’Connor explained why the Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case:
“We granted certiorari, 537 U.S. 1043 (2002), to resolve the disagreement among the Courts of Appeals on a question of national importance: Whether diversity is a compelling interest that can justify the narrowly tailored use of race in selecting applicants for admission to public universities. Compare Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F.3d 932 (CA5 1996) (Hopwood I ) (holding that diversity is not a compelling state interest), with Smith v. University of Washington Law School, 233 F.3d 1188 (CA9 2000) (holding that it is).”
Majority opinion by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor explaining that the Court took this case to resolve a split among the Circuit Courts. 539 U.S. at 321.
Please Note: This case cleared up possible ambiguities in a case decided more than 20 years earlier. In University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), the Supreme Court held that racial quotas in admissions programs violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but the Court did not rule out whether race could be considered in some other fashion. Grutter answered this question affirmatively. However, the more that racial considerations look like quotas, the more likely it is that they will be struck down. The same day Grutter was decided, the Supreme Court also decided Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003) which struck down a “points-plus” system which gave additional points to the admissions score of applicants with a minority background. The Court said the “points-plus” system gave such applicants an unfair advantage based upon their race and was similar to the impermissible quota system struck down in Bakke.
In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 551 U.S. ___ (2007), the Supreme Court held that using race as a “tie breaker” when assigning students to (elementary and secondary) schools in a school district where there was no previous history of racial segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the same case, the Court also held that a Kentucky school district which was under a desegregation order until 2000 also violated the Equal Protection Clause by classifying students as “black” or “other” for purposes of making assignments to schools in the hope of achieving racial diversity. In essence, Parents Involved seems to imply that the diversity rationale of Grutter only applies to colleges and universities, and not to elementary and secondary schools.