Facts—A division of the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded a contract for highway construction in Colorado to Mountain Gravel and Construction Company, which solicited bids for subcontracts for guardrails. It awarded the contract to Gonzalez Construction Company over Adarand Constructors…
Facts—In 1977 Congress passed the Public Works Employment Act, which provides that “at least 10 percent of federal funds for local public works projects must be used by the state or local grantee to procure services or supplies from businesses…
Facts—In 1974 the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) and Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation (Kaiser) entered into a master collective bargaining agreement covering terms and conditions of employment. It included an affirmative action plan designed to eliminate racial imbalances…
Facts—Allan Bakke, a white male, twice applied (1973–1974) to the Medical School of the University of California at Davis. Despite strong “bench marks” (interviewers’ summaries, overall grade point average, science courses grade point, MCAT scores, letters of recommendation, extracurricular activities,…
Facts—Both the federal District Court and the Court of Appeals had held that inter-district busing was needed to bring about the desegregation of the Detroit city and adjacent or nearby school districts, specially to Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties. Question—Does…
Facts—The Moose Lodge of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, refused service to Leroy Irvis, an African American who was present as the guest of a member. Irvis claimed that since the state liquor board had issued the lodge a private club liquor license,…
Facts—The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system encompasses the city of Charlotte and surrounding Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Two-thirds of the African American students in the system attended schools that were either totally black or more than 99 percent black. The federal District…
Facts—Jones claimed that the Mayer Company refused to sell him a house in a particular section of St. Louis County solely because he was African American. A federal statute that Congress enacted in 1866 under its power to enforce the…
Facts—Two residents of Virginia, a black woman and a white man, Richard Loving, were married in the District of Columbia. They then returned to Caroline County, Virginia, where they were indicted for violation of Virginia’s ban on interracial marriages. The…
Brown v. Board of Education II, 349 U.S. 294; 75 S. Ct. 753; 99 L. Ed. 1083 (1955) Facts—After the Supreme Court’s historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Court ordered rearguments on how this ruling should…