Activist Groups Organizing Against the Supreme Court's Bakke Decision (1978) on Affirmative Action

Supreme Court on Affirmative Action Bakke Decision

Pamphlets

Activist groups organizing against the landmark Supreme Court decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), which further defined the constitutionality and application of Affirmative Action. Primarily Bay Area, 1977–1979. Archive of 8 items with most issued by the National Committee to Overturn the Bakke Decision (NCOBD), along with the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade and other affiliated groups. The archive offers a radical and multiracial perspective on one of the most contentious affirmative action cases in U.S. history.

The Bakke decision was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case addressing affirmative action in higher education. Allan Bakke, a white applicant, sued the University of California, Davis medical school after being denied admission despite having higher test scores than some minority applicants accepted through a special admissions program. The Court issued a split decision: it ruled that racial quotas, like the 16 out of 100 seats reserved for minority applicants at UC Davis, were unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. However, the Court also held that race could be considered as one factor among others in admissions to promote diversity, thereby upholding the constitutionality of affirmative action in principle.
This extensive and cohesive archive captures a grassroots left wing critique of the Bakke ruling, a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racial quotas in university admissions and became a foundational case for opponents of affirmative action. Several pamphlets, including "Fight Racism—Overturn the Bakke Decision!" and "Don’t Wait for 'Justice'—Prepare for the Bakke Decision Now," characterize Bakke as a racist assault on the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. One flier warns that "if the Bakke decision is not overturned by the Court, affirmative action programs for minorities and women will be threatened with elimination." The literature situates the case within a broader attack on working-class and minority rights, emphasizing how programs addressing centuries of systemic exclusion were suddenly being recast as discriminatory. A recurrent slogan appears throughout: "Racism is illegal, not Affirmative Action!"

Materials reference national and local organizing efforts. A newsletter titled NCOBD Bulletin (Vol. I, No. 3) covers the October 8, 1977 National Day of Protest: "Over 10,000 people rallied to protests in numerous cities across the country" including Seattle, Oakland, and Washington D.C., where 2,000 people marched from the White House to the Supreme Court. The visual record is equally rich. Several items feature black-and-white images of multiracial protestors, many holding signs that read: "Overturn the Bakke Decision," "Fight Racism," and "Jobs and Education Now!" One dramatic image shows a raised fist holding newspapers emblazoned with "Negro Press" beneath a blazing torch labeled "Freedom Road," from the California Negro Leadership Conference booklet (Asilomar, 1970). Another photograph shows a crowd gathered outside Newark City Hall to protest police brutality, highlighting intersectional issues of race, employment, and justice.

One pamphlet from the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, printed in bold orange wrappers and titled Minorities & Whites, Unite to Smash the Bakke Decision!, argues that the capitalist system itself is responsible for inequality, urging youth to fight back: "Why should individual whites have to suffer for it with 'reverse discrimination'?" the text asks, answering, "Individual whites aren’t suffering from 'reverse discrimination,' they suffer from the oppression the capitalist system deals the vast majority of all people." The archive also includes two pamphlets on the Weber case (1979), seen by organizers as an extension of Bakke. Both carry the subtitle "Unite against racism and the oppression of women," and stress solidarity across race, gender, and labor. They detail Brian Weber's challenge to an affirmative action program at a Kaiser Aluminum plant, noting that although 40% of the local population was Black, only 2% of skilled craft workers were. Condition uniformly very good, with some chipping and minor edge wear. An unusually comprehensive archive documenting leftist mobilization around one of the most pivotal rulings on race and education in U.S. history.

Item #21797

Price: $325.00