Nation: What Bakke Means (Contd.)

The court moves warily, but affirmative action gains

Just five days after its ruling on the "reverse discrimination" complaint of the medical school applicant Allan Bakke, the Supreme Court last week turned to the no less controversial issue of affirmative action in the field of employment. In contrast to the Bakke decision, in which six Justices filled 154 pages with occasionally passionate legal arguments, the court simply let stand—without explanation—a lower-court ruling that approved numerical goals for employment and promotion of minorities and women.

At issue was an affirmative-action program, the largest in the...

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