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NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF STUDY AND

RESEARCH IN LAW,RANCHI

PHILOSOPHY PROJECT
Case Analysis:
Grutter v. Bollinger

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

DR. ARABINDA SAHOO YASH SINGH
NARUKA
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR SEMESTER- I
PHILOSOPHY SECTION- B
ROLL NO-1329
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DECLARATION
I, Yash Singh Naruka, a first semester BALLB student of National University of Study and
Research in Law, Ranchi, hereby declare that the project titled “Grutter v. Bollinger” under
the guidance of Dr. Arabinda Sahoo Sir, faculty of Philosophy, is an original work. I have made
sincere efforts to complete this project and have not done any misrepresentation of fact or data.

I declare that the statements made and the conclusions drawn are the bona fide outcome of the
research work. I further assert that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, proper references
have been given and does not contain any work that has been submitted in any other university.

Yash Singh
Naruka
Semester- I
Roll Number-1329
NUSRL, Ranchi
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I, Yash Singh Naruka Singh, would like to thank all of those who helped me during the whole
procedure of making this project and helped me in completing it successfully.
Firstly, I would like to thank my teacher and mentor Dr. Arabinda Sahoo who showed faith in
me by providing such a wonderful topic. His constant guidance has played a vital role in
completion of this project successfully. His keen attention helped me to deal with each problem
that I faced during the making of this project. My heartfelt gratitude to all the staff members
and administrators of NUSRL for providing me with a wonderful library. Their support cannot
be expressed in words.
Finally, I would like to thank God for his benevolence and grace in enabling me to finish this
task. I express my heartfelt gratitude to my parents, siblings, and friends who helped me to
complete this project without much problems.

Thanking you

Yash Singh
Naruka
BA LLB
Semester-I
Roll No. – 1329
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TABLE OF CONTENT

S. NO. TOPIC Page No.

1 Declaration 2

2 Acknowledgement 3

3 List Of Abbreviations 5

4 Case Analysis 6

5 Facts 6

6 Issues 7

7 Judgment 8

8 Critical Analysis 8

9 Conclusion 10

10 Sources & Bibliography 11

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LIST OF ABBREVATIONS:
1. LSAT: Law School Admission Test
2. GPA: Grade Point Average
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Case Analysis: Barbara Grutter v. Lee Bollinger

Citation: 539 U.S. 306, 2003
Decided On: June 23rd, 2003
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Bench: Judicial Bench (Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Justice Stevens, Justice O’Connor,
Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, Justice Souter, Justice Thomas, Justice Ginsberg, Justice
Breyer)

Facts:
In 1997, Barbara Grutter, a white Michigan resident, applied for admission to the Michigan
Law School. Grutter applied with a 3.8 undergraduate GPA and an LSAT score of 161. She
was put into standby list of the respective applicants even after having better score as compared
to other minority students and subsequently not admitted. Disappointed by the admission
process she decided to file a suit against the university in the District Court in December 1997,
alleging that the university had discriminated against her on the basis of race and is in violation
of the “equal protection clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment2 and Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act3 . She alleged the law school using race as the "predominant" factor, giving
applicants belonging to underrepresented minority groups a significantly greater chance of
admission than whites. The Law School accepted that it used race as a factor in admissions
process because it served a "compelling interest in achieving diversity among its student body."
She refuted saying that the university had no compelling interest to justify that use of race in
the selection process. The university argued that there was a compelling interest in promoting
diversity for educational benefits of all the students in the university, since majority of them
will become the coming lawyer of the nation and it required them to deal with people of varied
backgrounds. In March 2001, The District Court concluded that the Law School's stated interest
in achieving diversity in the student body was not compelling and enjoined its use of race in
the admissions process. In reversing, the Court of Appeals held that Justice Powell's opinion in
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke4 constituted a necessary precedent establishing
diversity as a compelling governmental interest sufficient under strict scrutiny review to justify
the use of racial preferences in admissions. The plaintiffs appealed further to the Supreme
Court, which agreed to hear the case in 2002.
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Issues:
The main bone of contention in the respective case is the ‘affirmative action policy’5 used by
the university in the student admission process. The plaintiff argued that the usage of race as a
variable in the admission process was itself in discriminatory nature for the non-minority. In
response, the Defendant said that it follows an official admission policy that seeks to achieve
student body diversity through compliance with the Bakke judgment, focussing on students’
ability coupled with a flexible assessment of their talents, experiences and potential. Under the
affirmative action policy, it was also necessary for the officials to look beyond the grades and
scores, the so-called soft-variables, since it was required for the university to maintain its
potpourri of students like Afro-American and Hispanics. The University argued that the policy
does not solely relies on the race and ethnicity of the applicant since there were some students
studying in the law school nevertheless of their less scores. Race was just a “potential plus
factor” for achieving the goal diversity in the students for their better professional and varied
experiences. Refuting the Defendant’s arguments, Miss Grutter alleged the university of being
favourable to a particular group and making it much harder for other aspiring candidates to be
in one of the top law schools of the country. She further said that affirmative or narrowly
tailored policy of the university was unlawful as it was in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment, Title VI of The Civil Rights Act, Equal Rights Under the Law16.

JUDGMENT:
After taking into consideration all the facts and findings to the case, the Hon’ble Supreme Court
came to a conclusion that United States Constitution “does not prohibit the law school’s
narrowly tailored use of race in admission decisions to further a compelling interest in
obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.” The decision with a
5-4 majority was authored by Justice Sandra Day O’ Connor. The decision was taken in view
of the limited applicability of the affirmative policy for not more than 25 years. This phrase

1
4
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, (438 U.S. 265)
5
Policy aimed at increasing workplace or educational opportunities for under represented parts of the society.
6
Equal Rights Under The Law (42 U.S. Code § 1981)
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was echoed by the dissenting judge Justice Thomas. The jury emphasised specifically on the
time period because the main purpose of the policy was to get the minority groups in the law
school to provide a variety of students such an exposure which would help in their future law
profession, not to be followed forever since this was done by compromising with the merit, so
a definite period was necessary. The Quota system was reiterated illegal.

The dissenting opinion was also largely focused by the legal fraternity. Chief Justice Rehnquist
along with the 3 fellow dissenting judges used admission data to show that unconstitutional
discrimination occurred in the admission process by the Law school. Opposition argued that
the Law school’s asserted goal of reaching a “critical mass” of minority students was
inconsistent with the concept in that one would think the same size critical mass would be
needed for all the minority groups.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
 WHY GRUTTER v. BOLLINGER IS AN IMPORTANT
CASE?
Grutter v. Bollinger is an important case because it became a landmark precedent for other
upcoming cases related to the intentional discriminatory process opted by the educational
institutions in admission process. This case also helped in reminding the 25-year-old case of
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. It helped in clearing out the ambiguity of the
affirmative policy and its interpretation by the different admission committees. Many of the
institutions were not correctly interpreting the guidelines of the Bakke judgment or can be said
that they have interpreted it differently to fulfil their individual benefits.

The case was very much in lime light because it amassed huge protests and debates from people
of different ethnicity throughout America.

 STRENGTHS OF THE JUDGMENT:

There are many strong points of the judgment which come to highlight. First and the foremost
is the clarification provided by the judgment about the interpretation and usage of the
affirmative policy which gave a warning to all those institutions which were interpreting it
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wrongly. As per the judgement it was precisely mentioned that ‘race’ can be used as a factor
in the admission process but not the sole criteria. In addition, Quota system was held illegal.
Quotas imposed a fixed a fix number or percentage, which cannot be exceeded and must be
attained. Comparing this with the Indian scenario where in the Indra Sawhney Etc. vs Union of
India and Others 27, the 50% Quota limit was held constitutional by the Hon’ble Supreme Court
of India. And realising the current situation of both the nations we find that quota system is not
helping the unprivileged groups for whom the real need is there, rather using the affirmative
action policy is much helping. Because in Quota system (presently in India) it’s not been
harnessed by the real needy because only a few people who are better off in the particular group
again and again utilise its benefit which fills up all of the quota. But with the narrowly tailored
policy of the law school, race or ethnicity was just plus factor and abilities off the students were
also equally taken into consideration which served both the interests of admitting body and the
applicants. Last but not the least by specifying the 25-yrs time limit, it stopped the upcoming
cases which may have definitely arrived to the lower courts asking about the time period for
which this affirmative policy will go on. And it was correctly realised by the jury that after a
significant period it would of no importance to continue it for ever.

 WEAKNESS OF THE JUDGMENT:

According to the opposition, The Law School’s means were not narrowly tailored to the interest
it asserts. They said the defendant engaged in precisely the type of racial balancing that the
Court itself calls unconstitutional. The Law School didn’t demonstrate how individual
consideration is, or can be, preserved at this stage of the application process given the
instruction to attain what it calls critical mass. Justice Thomas in his dissent said, “I believe
blacks can acquire anything in every avenue of American life without the meddling of
university administrators. And it was clearly proscribed in the Constitution that government
discrimination on the basis of race should be prohibited and why state-provided education was
provided this extra immunity to use race or ethnicity as a factor in admission process.

CONCLUSION:

27
Indra Sawhney Etc. vs Union of India and Others, AIR 1993 SC 477
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Different Courts had different opinions; The District Court ruled in favour of the. But later this
decision was turned in favour of the defendant by the Sixth Circuit Court by referring it to the
Bakke judgment. At last, the case reached to the Supreme Court which finally gave the
judgment in favour of the defendant. Analysing all the arguments of the both the sides and
judgment with its reasoning, it comes to the fore that the jury correctly held the affirmative
policy as constitutional. Even the admission was discriminatory in itself but it was done taking
in consideration to the need of variety of student body in the Law school. There were multiple
benefits of the policy which were clearly showed by the defendant in the proceedings.
Dissenting side with their data also showed the weakness of the judgement but it was less
appealing than the majority.

SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-241.ZO.html
2. https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/professional-
responsibility/professional-responsibility-keyed-to-hazard/the-
structure-of-legal-practice-professional-responsibility-keyed-to-
hazard/grutter-v-bollinger-2/
3. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/02-241
4. https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-
grutter-v-bollinger