Gratz v. Bollinger

Gratz v. Bollinger
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 1, 2003 Decided June 23, 2003
Full case name	Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher v. Lee Bollinger, et al.
Docket no.	02-516
Citations	539 U.S. 244 (more) 123 S. Ct. 2411; 156 L. Ed. 2d 257; 2003 U.S. LEXIS 4801; 71 U.S.L.W. 4480; 91 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1803; 84 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) ¶ 41,416; 2003 Cal. Daily Op. Service 5362; 16 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 387
Case history
Prior	Summary judgment granted in part to plaintiffs, 122 F. Supp. 2d 811 (E.D. Mich. 2000); Summary judgment granted to plaintiffs, 135 F. Supp. 2d 790 (E.D. Mich. 2001); consolidated on appeal with Grutter v. Bollinger before en banc court, 277 F.3d 803 (6th Cir. 2001); cert. before judgment granted, 537 U.S. 1044 (2002).
Subsequent	On remand, 80 Fed. App'x 417 (6th Cir. 2003)
Holding
A state university's admission policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because its ranking system gave an automatic point increase to all racial minorities rather than making individual determinations.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Rehnquist, joined by O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas
Concurrence	O'Connor, joined by Breyer (in part)
Concurrence	Thomas
Concurrence	Breyer (in judgment)
Dissent	Stevens, joined by Souter
Dissent	Souter, joined by Ginsburg (in part)
Dissent	Ginsburg, joined by Souter, Breyer (in part)
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the University of Michigan undergraduate affirmative action admissions policy. In a 6–3 decision announced on June 23, 2003, Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the Court, ruled the University's point system's "predetermined point allocations" that awarded 20 points towards admission to underrepresented minorities "ensures that the diversity contributions of applicants cannot be individually assessed" and was therefore unconstitutional.^[1]