The Impact of the Bakke Decision on Minority Enrollment

十年前，在加州大学校务委员会诉巴克案（Regents of California v. Bakke）中，美国最高法院宣布加州大学戴维斯分校医学院的招生计划无效。该计划在每年100个入学名额中为少数族裔保留16个名额。这项裁决通常被解释为学校不能使用配额，但可以实行平权行动。在最高法院做出裁决之前，巴克案几乎成了家喻户晓的话题。在公众看来，此案将在很大程度上象征性地为美国社会平权行动定下基调，并决定其推进速度。此外，它还将决定许多专业学校招生计划的有效性，从而决定这些专业学校未来的班级构成。令人惊讶的是，尽管它是多年来最著名的案例之一，但巴克案的实际影响尚不清楚。没有严肃的科学研究试图确定巴克是否对职业学校这条向上流动的关键途径产生了重大影响。Drs。韦尔奇和格鲁尔将试图通过评估巴克案对少数族裔在医学院和法学院入学的影响来弥补这一差距。他们将收集三个数据集：(1)1964年至1986年法律和医学院一年级少数族裔入学人数的全国汇总数据；(2)个别医学院和法学院的时间序列数据；(3)招生人员的调查数据。将使用多变量和中断时间序列分析来检验一般假设，即最高法院取消配额的决定使几所大学的招生模式发生了重大变化，但最高法院允许平权行动的政策并没有带来明显的变化。这项研究很重要，不仅因为它是对广泛讨论和有争议的巴克案影响的第一次实证调查，而且巴克案的判决提供了一个相对难得的机会，可以系统地检查全国范围内重要的法院判决对公共和私人官员的影响。通常情况下，司法学者被迫只研究执行法院判决的机构中的一小部分（例如警察部门或学校）。这项研究将检查每一个法律和医学院受影响的决定，并将能够阐明重要的理论问题，法院作为政策制定者的作用，法院的决定对全国行为的影响，以及不同类型的组织如何回应法院的决定。

A decade ago, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the admissions plan of the medical school at the University of California, Davis. The plan reserved sixteen of 100 places in each year's entering class for racial minorities. The ruling generally has been interpreted to mean that schools cannot use quotas but can practice affirmative action. The Bakke case became almost a household word before the decision was reached. In the public's view, the case would go a long way toward symbolically setting the tone and determining the speed of affirmative action in American society. In addition, it would determine the validity of many professional schools' admissions plans and, therefore, the composition of these professional schools' classes in the future. Surprisingly, despite its status as one of the most celebrated cases in many years, the actual impact of Bakke is unknown. No serious scientific study has attempted to determine if Bakke had a significant effect on the crucial path to upward mobility-- professional schools. Drs. Welch and Gruhl will attempt to remedy this gap by assessing the impact of the Bakke decision on minority enrollments in medical and law schools. They will assemble three data sets: (1) aggregate national data on minority enrollments in the first year classes of law and medical schools from 1964 to 1986; (2) time series data on individual medical and law schools; and (3) survey data from admissions officers. Multivariate and interrupted time series analyses will be used to test the general hypotheses that the Court's decision striking down quotas made a significant change in the admissions patterns of several institutions, but that the Court's policy allowing affirmative action made less of a visible change. Not only is this research important because it is the first empirical inquiry into the effects of the widely discussed and controversial Bakke case, but also the Bakke decision offers a relatively rare opportunity to examine systematically the impact of an important Court decision nationwide on both public and private officials. Often, judicial scholars are forced by circumstances to look at only a small portion of those agencies that implement the Court's decision (police departments or schools, for example). This study will examine every law and medical school affected by the decision and will be able to shed light on important theoretical questions about the role courts play as policy makers, the impact court decisions have on behavior nationwide, and how different types of organizations respond to a court decision.