Bakke was not considered for four special admissions slots which had not yet been filled. Bakke wrote a letter of complaint to Dr. George H. Lowrey, complaining the special admissions program was not what it claimed to be (a program to help the underprivileged), but a racial and ethnic quota.
In 1974 Bakke again applied to the school and received a score of 549 out of 600. His lowest score of 86 was from Dr. Lowrey, who found Bakke "rather limited in his approach" to the problems of the medical profession, and was disturbed by Bakke's "very definite opinions, which were based more on his personal viewpoints than upon a study of the total problem" In both years that Bakke applied, minority applicants were admitted under the "special admissions" program with GPAs, MCAT scores and benchmark scores significantly lower than Bakke's.
Bakke then filed suit in the Superior Court of California seeking an injunction to allow him into the medical school claiming that the school had discriminated against him on the basis of his race and thus violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the California Constitution, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The California Supreme Court favored Bakke, in a vote of eight to one.
The U.S. Supreme court decided that universities were allowed to use race as a factor in admission. Title VI of the civil rights statute prohibits discrimination in any institution that receives federal funding. However, in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court affirmed Powell's opinion, but overturned it again in Gratz v. Bollinger.
After eight months, a vote of 5-4 decided that Bakke be admitted to the medical school at Davis.
