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Constitutional Law Keyed to Choper
DeFunis v. Odegaard
Citation:
416 U.S. 312, 94 S.Ct. 1704, 40 L.Ed.2d 164 (1974).Facts
DeFunis, a white student, applied for admission to the University of Washington Law School in 1971. DeFunis was denied admission to the law school despite his test scores being higher than some of the minorities admitted. He filed suit against the law school claiming that its admissions policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A state trial court agreed with DeFunis and ordered officials to admit him in the fall of 1971. However, after DeFunis had already started his studies, the Supreme Court of Washington reversed in favor of the law school, explaining that its affirmative action program was a constitutionally permissible admissions tool justified by several state interests; namely, attaining a racially diverse student body while also helping to alleviate the shortage of minority attorneys.
When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, DeFunis was already in his final year of law school.
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