Opinion ID: 777482
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Justice Powell's Opinion in Bakke remains the Law of the Land

Text: 91 The dissent's many fallacies begin with its attempt to undermine the majority's holding that Justice Powell's opinion in Bakke is controlling. Indeed, now Supreme Court Justice Scalia once described Justice Powell's opinion as the law of the land. See Antonin Scalia, Commentary, The Disease as Cure: In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race., 1979 WASH. U. L.Q. 147, 148 (1979) (speaking then as Professor Scalia on Justice Powell's opinion in Bakke ). And significantly, since Bakke the Supreme Court has done nothing to render this description of Justice Powell's opinion any different. See Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237, 117 S.Ct. 1997, 138 L.Ed.2d 391 (1997) (reaffirming that `[i]f a precedent of this Court has direct application in a case, ... the Court of Appeals should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions') (quoting Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484, 109 S.Ct. 1917, 104 L.Ed.2d 526 (1989)); see also Wessmann v. Gittens, 160 F.3d 790, 796 (1st Cir.1998) (recognizing that absent a clear holding from the Supreme Court, the precedential value of Justice Powell's opinion in Bakke, that diversity is a sufficiently compelling governmental interest to justify a race-based classification, should not be disturbed, especially where various individual justices have from time to time ... written approvingly of ethnic diversity in comparable settings); Mark R. Killenbeck, Pushing Things Up to Their First Principles: Reflections on the Values of Affirmative Action, 87 CAL. L. REV. 1299, 1352 (1999) (illustrating why Justice Powell's opinion in Bakke is controlling, and why any other conclusion elevates form over substance inasmuch as Justice Brennan's opinion cannot be distinguished from Justice Powell's opinion on the basis of the level of scrutiny applied, or on any other basis) (citing Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267, 286, 106 S.Ct. 1842, 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986) (O'Connor, J., concurring) (finding that [a]lthough Justice Powell's formulation may be viewed as more stringent than that suggested by Justices Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun, the disparities between the two tests do not preclude a fair measure of consensus[,] particularly where the distinction between a `compelling' and an `important' governmental purpose may be a negligible one); Bush v. Vera, 517 U.S. 952, 1010, 116 S.Ct. 1941, 135 L.Ed.2d 248 (1996) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (noting that all equal protection jurisprudence might be described as a form of rational basis scrutiny; we apply `strict scrutiny' more to describe the likelihood of success than the character of the test to be applied); United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 567, 116 S.Ct. 2264, 135 L.Ed.2d 735 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (contending that [t]hese tests are no more scientific than their names suggest, and a further element of randomness is added by the fact that it is largely up to us which test will be applied in each case)). One should therefore not be taken in by the dissent's many contortions to convolute and undermine the majority's holding that diversity in a student body is a recognized compelling governmental interest pursuant to Justice Powell's controlling opinion in Bakke. 2 92