Grutter v. Bollinger and Marbury v. Madison: Promoting Diversity in Universities

Grutter v. Bollinger and Marbury v. Madison
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Grutter v. Bollinger and Marbury v. Madison
The law remains the final step in solving some of the socioeconomic and political challenges that society faces. One of such issues presently is diversity in learning institutions. As a diverse society, the law must find avenues of offering opportunities to every individual. Education is one of the most influential prospects when it comes to change and development in society. Hence, marking diversity through educational platforms should be monumental to communities and learning institutions. However, questions still arise on how diversity can be achieved in learning institutions without disfavoring qualified applicants. The 1978 Supreme Court Bekke Supreme Court case that struck down the admission policy geared towards creating diversity in education opened avenues for more legal approaches to addressing the issue. This paper explores the diversity admission policy through the Grutter v. Bollinger and Marbury v. Madison Supreme Court cases that combined to redefine the future of acceptance into various learning institutions. Having accorded the Supreme Court the power of judicial review, the Marbury v. Madison case opened a platform for executing the Grutter v. Bollinger case that has since steered the legal structure on diversity in admissions as a compelling state interest.
Grutter v. Bollinger
The Grutter v. Bollinger is one of the most monumental cases by the Supreme Court to have set a precedent in compelling state interest in student admission policies. When the plaintiff, Barbara Grutter, a white Michigan resident, was denied admission to the University of Michigan's Law School (defendant), she for an injunction by the district court. The plaintiff garnered a 3.8-grade average and a 161 score on the LSAT. The facts of the case are that a law school applicant sued the defendant on the ground of violation of the 14th Amendment by the defendant. The petitioner further claimed that her application to the institution was rejected primarily because the school employed race as a predominant factor while choosing applicants who would join the institution. With race as a predominant factor, applicants belonging to various ethnic groups were accorded a greater chance of joining the institution than those applicants from disfavored ethnic groups. While the district court ruled that the policy was unconstitutional and granted an injunction, the US court of appeal for the sixth circuit vacated the injunction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
The Grutter v. Bollinger bore a debate on the rule of law to warrant its present popularity. The synopsis of the rule of law was on whether diversity is a compelling interest worthy of narrowly justifying tailored employment of race in the admission policies of public universities. Hence, was it lawful for the University Of Michigan School Of Law to use race as a factor in student admissions? In conclusion, the court referred to the individualized review of each applicant that opened a platform for all the applicants to contribute to diverse educational environments. The court concluded that all the factors contributing to diversity in the institution w...