The case, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke from 1978, was the first court ruling on affirmative Action. The University’s Medical School reserved 16 out of 100 spaces for students of color, thus allowing race to be a determining factor on college admission. The court’s decision was that setting a quota for minority students was not permissible. Allan Bakke, in his early thirties, was rejected after applying for admission to the Medical School and considered too old. He brought suit against the university and the Supreme Court voted to admit him based on the fact that the rejection violated against white males (Regents, n.d.).

The University of Michigan cases were based on whether or not racial preferences can be considered as part of the Law School admissions process, considering whether or not student body diversity would result in educational benefits. It was established that universities cannot create quotas for members of a certain racial or ethnic group. The second case involved awarding points used toward the admission process based on whether the applicant was a member of a minority group, giving higher points if that was the case. The Supreme Court did not rule in favor of a point system (Supreme Court, n.d.).

The implications these rulings have on personnel managers is that following these rulings might mean that I might end up with a less diverse pool of employees and cannot set quotas to reach that goal. The 1986 Supreme Court decision in favor of affirmative action in hiring practices to avoid discrimination was based on the protection of minority employees over non-minority employees who may have had seniority. I am against this policy as it isn’t fair to employees who have worked for my company longer than others. I would hope that I have diversified my employee pool enough so that if I had to lay off, it would be based on who had less seniority and not based on race.