Opinion ID: 1267759
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The racial classifications embodied in the special admission program relate directly, and in a reasonable fashion, to the compelling state interest in promoting integration and are thus constitutional.

Text: As discussed above, the remedial racial classifications at issue here cannot properly be viewed as presumptively unconstitutional and thus should not be tested against the standard applied to invidious racial classifications, the exacting, seemingly insurmountable strict scrutiny standard. ( Dunn v. Blumstein (1972) 405 U.S. 330, 363 [31 L.Ed.2d 274, 296, 92 S.Ct. 995] (Burger, C.J. dissenting).) Although the strict scrutiny standard is not applicable, the appropriate constitutional standard to be employed in testing the constitutionality of benign racial classifications has not been clearly set forth. A number of relevant decisions of the United States Supreme Court suggest that the traditional rational basis equal protection test  which affords governmental bodies broad discretion in fashioning remedial policies  may well be the appropriate standard. (See Katzenbach v. Morgan, supra, 384 U.S. 641, 651, 657-658 [16 L.Ed.2d 828, 835-836, 839-840]; Swann v. Board of Education, supra, 402 U.S. 1, 16 [28 L.Ed.2d 554, 566-567]; Kahn v. Shevin, supra, 416 U.S. 351, 355-356 [40 L.Ed.2d 189, 193]; Morton v. Mancari, supra, 417 U.S. 535, 554-555 [41 L.Ed.2d 290, 302-303].) Quite recently, however, several state and lower federal courts have suggested that in light of the potential untoward consequences of racial classifications of any kind  benign as well as invidious  a somewhat more rigorous judicial scrutiny than is traditionally applied under the rational basis test should be employed. (See Alevy v. Downstate Medical Center (1976) 39 N.Y.2d 326 [384 N.Y.S.2d 82, 88-91, 348 N.E.2d 537, 543-546]; Associated Gen. Contractors of Mass., Inc. v. Altshuler, supra, 490 F.2d 9, 17.) There are sound reasons for the judiciary to take a somewhat cautious approach in reviewing ostensibly benign racial classifications. In light of the historical misuse of racial classifications in this country, it is important that courts carefully and realistically assess the purpose and effect of any racial classification to assure that the classification is actually devised for legitimate remedial purposes rather than as a covert method for imposing invidious racial discrimination. In undertaking such a realistic review, however, a court must also be mindful that remedies for the continuing effects of past discrimination have proven distressingly elusive, and that it is therefore important that entities attempting in good faith to promote integration be given reasonable leeway in experimenting with various methods to achieve this compelling societal objective. Accordingly, once a court is convinced that differential racial treatment has been adopted in a good faith attempt to promote integration, it should uphold a benign racial classification so long as it is directly and reasonably related to the attainment of integration. Under this standard, the racial classifications at issue here are clearly constitutional. The background of the Davis special admission program demonstrates that its racial classifications were clearly devised as a realistic attempt to promote integration. Prior to the implementation of the special admission program, the medical school had pursued an admission process which relied heavily on an applicant's scores on the standardized Medical College Aptitude Test (MCAT) and on an applicant's undergraduate grade point average. The use of such traditional admission criteria resulted in the rejection of almost all qualified minority applicants. Thus, although the medical school regularly received applications from a vast number of qualified applicants of all races and ethnic backgrounds, as a consequence of its prior admission policies the medical school functioned, in effect, as a largely segregated educational institution. To remedy this segregated condition the medical school implemented the special admission program. The program has several aspects. First, whereas the medical school, for administrative purposes, had established a 2.5 undergraduate grade point average as a somewhat arbitrary cut-off point in its normal admission decisions, the special admission program eliminated this automatic cut-off point for disadvantaged minorities on the ground that in light of such applicants' peculiar circumstances  a different cultural background combined with economic needs that often required such applicants to hold jobs during their undergraduate years  grade point averages were quite frequently not a reliable indicator of these applicants' potential for success in the medical profession. (See Simon, Performance of Medical Students Admitted Via Regular and Admission-Variance Routes (1975) 50 J.Med.Ed. 237.) Second, by adopting a specific goal of students to be accepted under the special admission program  approximately one-sixth of the student body  the medical school made a policy judgment that the benefits of integration required the acceptance of more than a token number of minority students. It must be emphasized, however, that the special admission program did not contemplate, nor sanction, the admission of unqualified applicants simply because they were minorities. As reflected in the majority opinion, the medical school did not by any means accept all minority students who applied for admission; in 1973, the school granted interviews to only one-third of the special admission applicants, and in 1974, only one-sixth of such applicants were interviewed. Moreover, no minority applicant was admitted into the medical school without being found fully qualified for medical school study by the same admissions committee that passed on all other applicants. The majority claim that in accepting some minority applicants with grade point averages, test scores or benchmark scores that would have resulted in rejection if such applicants had been white, the medical school has accepted less qualified minorities over more qualified nonminorities, and therefore that the program is discriminatory and unreasonable. [11] The majority err, however, in maintaining that an applicant's race or ethnic background is never relevant to his qualification for medical school. As the medical school points out, there are a number of reasons that an applicant's membership in a minority race or ethnic group was properly taken into consideration in evaluating his relative qualification for medical school and his potential for making a contribution to the medical profession. First, as the chairman of the school's admission committee explained, disadvantaged minorities were accorded differential treatment in part because the school concluded that the objective academic credentials on which the school had largely relied in the past did not accurately predict such minority applicant's qualifications and did not provide an equitable basis for comparison with other applicants. [12] To the extent that the differential treatment of minority applicants was thus based on the school's determination that its traditional criteria were culturally biased against minorities, it seems incontrovertible that the school, at the very least, was entitled voluntarily to adjust its standards to overcome any built-in bias. (Cf. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., supra, 401 U.S. 424.) Indeed, the medical school's decision to deemphasize MCAT scores and grade point averages for minorities is especially reasonable and invulnerable to constitutional challenge in light of numerous empirical studies which reveal that, among qualified applicants, such academic credentials bear no significant correlation to an individual's eventual achievement in the medical profession. [13] The findings of these studies are not surprising when one considers all of the nonacademic qualities  energy, compassion, empathy, dedication, dexterity, and the like  which make for a successful physician. As medical school admissions officials themselves acknowledge, these studies raise questions of the most serious order as to the propriety of the continuing use of traditional admission criteria. [14] While such empirical data might well have justified a revamping of the school's admission policies for all applicants, the medical school cannot be said to have acted unreasonably or unconstitutionally in deciding, perhaps as a first step, [15] to decrease its reliance on the traditional criteria with respect to applications from disadvantaged minorities, who as a group had been so disproportionately excluded by such criteria. As the United States Supreme Court has explained in upholding a benign racial classification in an analogous context: [I]n deciding the constitutional propriety of the limitations in such a reform measure we are guided by the familiar principles that a `statute is not invalid under the Constitution because it might have gone farther than it did' [citation], that a legislature need not `strike at all evils at the same time' [citations], and that `reform may take one step at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem which seems most acute to the legislative mind' [citation]. ( Katzenbach v. Morgan, supra, 384 U.S. 641, 657 [16 L.Ed.2d 828, 839].) Moreover, as the medical school asserts, the minority background of an applicant is relevant to his qualification for medical school and medical practice for reasons beyond the correction of culturally biased academic credentials. As we have already seen, in Swann v. Board of Education, supra, 402 U.S. 1, 16 [28 L.Ed.2d 554, 566-567], the Supreme Court explicitly confirmed that school authorities are constitutionally empowered to utilize benign racial classifications to achieve racially balanced schools in order to prepare students to live in a pluralistic society. The special admission process at issue here, of course, was in fact implemented for just such an educational purpose, to provide a diverse, integrated student body in which all medical students might learn to interact with and appreciate the problems of all races so as to adequately prepare them for medical practice in a pluralistic society. This educational interest in a diverse student body is no mere make-weight; undergraduate schools and professional institutions of the highest calibre have long recognized that the quality of one's educational experience is affected as importantly by a wide variety of interests, talents, backgrounds and career goals [in the student body] as it is by a fine faculty and ... libraries [and] laboratories.... (65 Official Register of Harv. U. No. 25 (1968), pp. 104-105.) Thus, given the race and ethnic background of the great majority of students admitted by the medical school, minority applicants possess a distinct qualification for medical school simply by virtue of their ability to enhance the diversity of the student body. In addition to promoting diversity in the medical school itself, the special admission program was aimed at alleviating the largely segregated nature of the medical profession generally. There is no question but that during the years in question here minorities were grossly underrepresented in the medical profession. (See Thompson, Curbing the Black Physician Manpower Shortage (1974) 49 J.Med.Ed. 944.) Realizing that a segregated medical profession might well remain largely oblivious to the realities of life of disadvantaged minorities and the nature and scope of their medical problems, the medical school established the special admission program in part in recognition of its obligation to meet the broad needs of the medical profession at large. One of the most pressing medical problems in the country, of course, is the paucity of medical services available to residents in poor minority neighborhoods. The medical school tailored its special admission program specifically to meet this problem; all of the minority students accepted under the program came from a disadvantaged background and all expressed their intent to return to practice in poor, minority communities upon completion of their medical training. The majority, at one point, suggest that this purpose of the special admission program is somehow improper, and that the medical school has, by its approach, committed itself to the illegitimate task of producing, for example, black [doctors] for blacks. This simplistic characterization of the special admission process surely does a grave disservice to the medical school. The medical school has by no means undertaken to train black doctors simply to treat blacks, or to train chicano doctors simply to treat chicanos; a minority doctor's medical degree is not, of course, a license only to treat minorities. In my view, however, it was neither unreasonable nor improper for the medical school to conclude that at least one of the reasons for the deplorable lack of effective medical services in minority communities is the shortage of minority physicians, and to determine that an increase of disadvantaged minority doctors might play at least some role in improving the situation. (See Karst & Horowitz, Affirmative Action & Equal Protection (1974) 60 Va.L.Rev. 955, 970.) Indeed, the majority itself recognizes the logic of such an approach with respect to the preference accorded by the medical school to applicants from Northern California. As the majority acknowledge, in the years under consideration here the Davis medical school accorded preferential consideration to applicants from Northern California because of the shortage of doctors in that part of the state; the assumption behind that policy, of course, was that such residents were likely to return to the vicinity of their homes when they began their practice. The majority do not question the propriety or reasonableness of such assumption, and do not invalidate such preferential treatment, although this aspect of the admission procedure, as well as the special admission program, may have hurt plaintiff's chances for admission. Nor do the majority inquire  as they do with the special admission program  whether the shortage of doctors in Northern California could be remedied by alternative means, for example, a government subsidy to all doctors who choose to practice in that area. Since the medical school's interest in increasing medical services in disadvantaged minority communities is surely no less valid than its interest in overcoming the shortage of doctors in rural, less populated areas, I do not see how we can uphold the preferential admission of rural applicants, but strike down such preference to applicants from urban minority communities. Finally, over and above the benefits accorded to the medical school and to the medical profession, the special admission program was implemented to serve the larger national interest of promoting an integrated society in which persons of all races are represented in all walks of life and at all income levels. As Professor O'Neill has explained: For minority youth, ... professionals from and within their community offer essential role models. Success and expanding opportunities suggest that there are ways of `making it' without resort to violence. Conversely, the denial or closing off of opportunities for education cannot help but breed frustration, resentment and anger at the predominantly white Anglo society. (O'Neill, Racial Preference and Higher Education: The Larger Context (1974) 60 Va.L.Rev. 925, 944.) If any state interest can be said to be compelling for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is just such an interest in overcoming the isolation of minorities and bringing them into the mainstream of American society. Any one of the numerous objectives served by the special admission program would appear sufficient, in itself, to justify the program's existence; surely, when viewed cumulatively, they remove any doubt as to the propriety of the medical school's consideration of race as one relevant factor in the admission decision. The majority maintain, however, that although the objectives served by the special admission program may be compelling, the medical school could not properly take race into account in achieving such goals. This suggestion simply ignores the nature of these objectives. First, to the extent that standardized test scores and undergraduate grades are particularly poor measures of the potential of minority applicants, any classification which attempts to correct such inequity must inevitably focus on minority status. Second, because all of the additional objectives of the program  a diverse student body, a desegregated profession, an integrated society  necessitate the effective racial and ethnic integration of the student body, consideration of the race and ethnic background of individual applicants cannot be avoided. As the school desegregation cases teach, as a practical matter race [must] be considered in formulating a remedy for segregated institutions. ( Board of Education v. Swann, supra, 402 U.S. 43, 46 [28 L.Ed.2d 586, 589].) It may be argued that while the medical school could appropriately consider race in the admission process, the special admission program at issue here went too far in setting up a fixed quota of 16 places in each medical school class. There is no question that if the 16 places represented a predetermined limit on the number of disadvantaged minorities that would be accepted regardless of how they compared with other applicants, the quota would pose very grave, probably fatal, constitutional questions. The plaintiff here, however, does not raise any such objection and, if the program actually operates in such fashion, we must await an appropriate constitutional challenge to this aspect of the admission procedure. If instead of constituting a limit on disadvantaged minority enrollment, the 16 places reserved for the special admission program simply represented the university's determination that a more than token representation of disadvantaged minorities was needed to achieve the numerous benefits of integration, the specific numerical goal becomes more defensible. Although one may question the medical school's decision to establish a designated figure as a matter of policy, past benign racial classification cases suggest that no constitutional infirmity attaches to the establishment of explicit concrete integration goals. (See, e.g., Swann v. Board of Education, supra, 402 U.S. 1, 16 [28 L.Ed.2d 554, 566-567]; U.S. v. Montgomery Bd. of Educ., supra, 395 U.S. 225, 235-236 [23 L.Ed.2d 263, 272-273, 89 S.Ct. 1670]; Southern Illinois Builders Association v. Ogilvie, supra, 471 F.2d 680, 686.) In light of California's sizable minority population [16] and the current underrepresentation of minorities in the medical profession, the allocation of 16 out of 100 places to the special admission program can hardly be criticized as unreasonably generous. Moreover, only fully qualified applicants were admitted under the program and thus if there had not been a sufficient number of qualified disadvantaged minority applicants the medical school would not have accepted minority applicants simply to fill a quota. (Cf. Associated Gen. Contractors of Mass., Inc. v. Altshuler, supra, 490 F.2d 9, 18-19.) In this respect, the 16 places represented a goal rather than a quota. [17] In striking down the special admission program, the majority rely heavily on the medical school's asserted failure to prove that it could not have accomplished its objectives by less onerous nonracial alternatives. Since benign classifications are not presumptively unconstitutional, however, the majority err in placing upon the medical school the burden of proving the nonexistence of such alternatives. If alternative remedies are relevant to the constitutionality of the program at all, the party attacking the validity of the program should bear the burden of demonstrating the realistic availability of alternative methods of achieving the medical school's numerous objectives. Plaintiff completely failed to make any such showing in this case. Moreover, although the majority conclude that the medical school failed to demonstrate the unavailability of alternatives, the only evidence in the present record on this point is the admission committee chairman's statement that, in the judgment of the faculty of the Davis Medical School, the special admissions program is the only method whereby the school can produce a diverse student body which will include qualified students from disadvantaged backgrounds.... [T]here would be few, if any, black students and few Mexican-American, Indian or Orientals from disadvantaged backgrounds in the Davis Medical School or any other medical school, if the special admissions program and similar programs at other schools did not exist.... (Italics added.) The majority simply reject this unimpeached statement out-of-hand, and, without any support from the record, suggest a number of alternatives which on their face are either disingenuous or impractical or both. The majority initially suggest that the medical school could achieve its goals by utilizing such nonracial means as opening its special admission program to disadvantaged applicants of all races. This alternative  like most of the other nonracial classifications which have been suggested  bears the initial vice of disingenuousness. Because the principal objective of the medical school is to achieve a racially and ethnically integrated, rather than an economically diverse, student body, any nonracial classification will achieve the medical school's objective only to the extent that such nonracial classification in fact correlates with minority race and ethnic background. Thus, the process of selecting a racially neutral criterion to promote integration cannot honestly be described as a nonracial decision. Yet the majority commands just such a manipulation of labels, so that the perfectly proper purposes of the program must be concealed by subterfuge. I do not concur in this retreat into obfuscating terminology. Moreover, although the majority speculate that the broadening of the special admission program to disadvantaged applicants of all races will result in approximately the same amount of integration as the present program, that conclusion appears untenable on its face. Because all disadvantaged students need financial aid, the total number of such students a medical school can afford to admit is limited. As a consequence, inclusion of all disadvantaged students in the special admission program would inevitably decrease the number of minority students admitted under the program and thus curtail the achievement of all integration-related objectives. (See, e.g., Sandalow, Racial Preferences in Higher Education: Political Responsibility and the Judicial Rule (1975) 42 U.Chi.L.Rev. 653, 690-692.) The majority's alternative suggestion that the integration of medical schools can be accomplished by increasing the size and number of medical schools is similarly unrealistic. The cost of medical educational facilities is enormous; absolutely nothing suggests that the necessary financial commitment for increased facilities will be forthcoming in the foreseeable future. It is a cruel hoax to deny minorities participation in the medical profession on the basis of such clearly fanciful speculation. In the end, the majority ultimately defend their holding on the ground that, while there are many laudable objectives served by the special admission program, there are more forceful policy reasons against preferential admissions based on race. (Italics added.) (See p. 61, ante. ) I do not doubt that both sides of the present controversy can urge strong policy considerations for their positions. (See generally Cox, The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government (1976) pp. 61-68.) Some commentators, like the majority, contend that the adverse effects of any racial classification outweigh any potential benefits (see, e.g., Lavinsky, DeFunis v. Odegaard: The Non Decision with a Message (1975) 75 Colum.L.Rev. 520; Posner, The DeFunis Case and the Constitutionality of Preferential Treatment of Racial Minorities 1974 Sup.Ct.Rev. 1); at least as many other scholars, however, maintain that the failure to adopt benign classifications as a temporary measure will perpetuate racial and ethnic deprivation for the indefinite future and will preclude ever achieving a colorblind society. (See, e.g., O'Neill, Discriminating Against Discrimination (1975); Karst & Horowitz, Affirmative Action and Equal Protection (1974) 60 Va.L.Rev. 955.) Similarly, while some commentators argue that racial classifications inevitably have a negative educational impact (see, e.g., Kaplan, Equal Justice in an Unequal World: Equality for the Negro  The Problem of Special Treatment (1966) 61 Nev.U.L. Rev. 363, 379-380), others have suggested just the contrary. (See Ely, The Constitutionality of Reverse Racial Discrimination (1974) 41 U.Chi.L. Rev. 723; Note, Developments in the Law  Equal Protection (1969) 82 Harv.L.Rev. 1065, 1113.) In light of these conflicting judgments, it is understandable that the majority might conclude, as a matter of policy, that it is preferable to avoid any use of racial classification. The majority are in serious error, however, in equating their own view of appropriate policy with constitutional commands. In this realm, it is the educational authorities, not the courts, that are empowered to render policy judgments. The very difference of opinion among fairminded and responsible educators and scholars suggests that policy decisions in this area should be left to the discretion of individual educational institutions. As we have seen, nothing in either the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, or in the governing authorities, requires the invalidation of the present special admission program. Two centuries of slavery and racial discrimination have left our nation an awful legacy, a largely separated society in which wealth, educational resources, employment opportunities  indeed all of society's benefits  remain largely the preserve of the white-Anglo majority. Until recently, most attempts to overcome the effects of this heritage of racial discrimination have proven unavailing. In the past decade, however, the implementation of numerous affirmative action programs, much like the program challenged in this case, have resulted in at least some degree of integration in many of our institutions. To date, this court has always been at the forefront in protecting the rights of minorities to participate fully in integrated governmental institutions. (See Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 876 [31 Cal. Rptr. 606, 382 P.2d 878]; Crawford v. Board of Education, supra, 17 Cal.3d 280.) It is anomalous that the Fourteenth Amendment that served as the basis for the requirement that elementary and secondary schools could be compelled to integrate, should now be turned around to forbid graduate schools from voluntarily seeking that very objective. I cannot join with the majority in concluding that the Constitution precludes the state through the medical school of the University of California at Davis from pursuing of its own volition a program to provide for the effective integration of its student body. The petition of the defendant and appellant for a rehearing was denied October 28, 1976, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Tobriner, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.