FOR AGAINST

Reynold Colvin, attorney for Allan Bakke: Allan Bakke's position is that he has a right, and that right is not to be discriminated against by reason of his race.

Justice John Paul Stevens: You do not dispute the basic finding that everybody admitted under the special program was qualified, do you?

Colvin: We certainly do dispute it . . . The ultimate fact in this case, no matter how you turn it, is that Mr. Bakke was deprived of an opportunity to attend the school by reason of his race. This is not a matter of conjecture. This is a stipula tion by the Regents of the University of California.

Justice Thurgood Marshall: You are talking about your client's rights. Don't these underprivileged people have some rights?

Colvin: They certainly have the right to. . .

Justice Marshall: To eat cake.

Colvin: They have the right to compete. The right to equal competition.

Justice Byron White: Even if [the needs for more minority professionals] are compelling interests, and even if there is no alternative, you believe the use of the racial classification is unconstitutional?

Colvin: We do. We do not believe that intelligence, that achievement, that ability are measured by skin pigmentation.

AGAINST

Harvard Law Professor Archibald Cox, representing the University of California: There are three facts, realities, which I think must control the decision of this court. The first is that the number of qualified applicants for the nation's professional schools is vastly greater than the number of places available.

The second fact: for generations, racial discrimination in the U.S. isolated certain minorities [and] condemned them to inferior education. And then there is one third fact: there is no racially blind method of selection which will enroll today more than a trickle of minority students in the nation's colleges and professions.

Justice Potter Stewart: [The University of California's admission system] did put a limit on the number of white people, didn't it?

Cox: Yes, but it was not stigmatizing in the sense that the old quota against Jews was stigmatizing.

Justice Stewart: Do you agree that there was a quota of 84 [whites]?

Cox: [It is not] properly defined as a quota . . . It's quite clear that for some of the things that a medical school wishes to accomplish that the minority applicant may have qualities that are superior to those of his classmate. He may be far more likely to go back to [his] community to practice medicine where he's needed.

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