DeFunis v. Odegaard

• Decision Date: 08 March 1973
• Docket Number: No. 42198,42198
• Citation: 507 P.2d 1169,82 Wn.2d 11
• Parties: Marco DeFUNIS et al., Respondents, v. Charles ODEGAARD, President of the University of Washington, et al., Appellants.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 11

82 Wn.2d 11

507 P.2d 1169

Marco DeFUNIS et al., Respondents, v. Charles ODEGAARD, President of the University of Washington et al., Appellants.

No. 42198.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

March 8, 1973.

Rehearing Denied May 16, 1973.

Slade Gorton, Atty. Gen., James B. Wilson, Senior Asst. Atty. Gen., Seattle, for appellants.

Lycette, Diamond & Sylvester, Josef Diamond, Lyle L. Iversen, Craig S. Sternberg, Seattle, for respondents.

Defendants, who include the members of the Board of Regents of the University of Washington, the President of the University, and the Dean and certain members of the Admissions Committee of the University of Washington School of Law, appeal from a judgment ordering them to admit plaintiff Marco DeFunis, Jr., as a first-year student to the University of Washington School of Law, as of September 22, 1971.

Broadly phrased, the major question presented herein is whether the law school may, in consonance with the equal protection provisions of the state and federal constitutions, consider the racial or ethnic background of applicants as one factor in the selection of students.

Marco DeFunis, Jr. (hereinafter plaintiff), his wife, and his parents commenced an action in the superior court, alleging that plaintiff, an applicant for admission to the University of Washington School of Law (hereinafter law school) for the class commencing September 1971, had been wrongfully denied admission in that no preference was given to residents of the state of Washington in the admissions process and that persons were admitted to the law school with lesser qualifications than those of plaintiff. The complaint asked that the court order the defendants to admit and enroll plaintiff in the law school in the fall of 1971 and, upon the failure of defendants to do so, that plaintiffs recover damages in the sum of not less than $50,000.

The superior court granted a temporary restraining order and order to show cause, restraining defendants from selecting students for admission to the law school during the pendency of the action. Defendants, in turn, moved to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that the court lacked jurisdiction of the cause and that the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.

The superior court dismissed that portion of the plaintiff's complaint seeking monetary damages. The balance of defendants' motion to dismiss was denied, and a temporary injunction was entered enjoining the defendants from admitting students to the law school 'in a number which would preclude the admission of plaintiff, Marco DeFunis, Jr., to the 1971--72 first year class, should his admission eventually be ordered by the court.' After a nonjury trial, the court ruled that in denying plaintiff admission to the law school, the University of Washington had discriminated against him in violation of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution.

Law school admissions pose a complex problem, and require a sensitive balancing of diverse factors. To gain insight into the complicated process of selecting first-year law students, and to better appreciate the essence of plaintiff's complaint against the law school, we turn first to the circumstances and operative facts--as delineated by the record--from which this litigation arises.

Under RCW 28B.20.130(3), the Board of Regents of the University of Washington has the power and duty to establish entrance requirements for students seeking admission to the University. The dean and faculty of the law school, pursuant to the authority delegated to them by the Board of Regents and the President of the University, have established a Committee on Admissions and Readmissions to determine who shall be admitted to the law school. For the academic year September 15, 1970, to June 15, 1971, the committee was composed of five faculty members and two student members; on June 7, 1971, the faculty of the law school expanded the membership of the committee to six faculty members and three students members. The chairman estimated that the committee spent over 1,300 hours in the selection process for the 1971--72 first-year class.

The number of qualified applicants to the law school has increased dramatically in recent years. In 1967, the law school received 618 applications; in 1968, 704; in 1969, 860; and in 1970, 1026 applications were received. The law school received 1601 applications for admission to the first-year class beginning September, 1971. Under the University's enrollment limitation there were only 445 positions allotted to the law school, and of these the number available for the first-year class was between 145 and 150. The chairman of the admissions committee stated that most of these applicants would be regarded as qualified by admissions standards at this and other comparable law schools in recent years. Hence, the task of selection is difficult, time-consuming and requires the exercise of careful and informed discretion, based on the evidence appearing in the application files. While many applicants are relatively easy to select for admission because of very outstanding qualifications, and others are relatively easy to reject, the middle group of candidates is much more difficult to assess. Plaintiff was in this latter category.

Applicants for admission to the law school must have earned an undergraduate degree and taken the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) administered by the Education Testing Service of Princeton, New Jersey. They must also submit with their written application a copy of transcripts from all schools and colleges which they have attended prior to application for admission, together with statements from their undergraduate dean of students and letters of recommendation from faculty members in their major field of study. They may submit additional letters of recommendation and statements. The application for admission gives the applicant the option to indicate his 'dominant' ethnic origin. The admissions process does not include personal interviews and does not reveal whether applicants are poor of affluent.

The committee's basic criteria for selecting students are expressed in the 'Guide for Applicants', a copy of which plaintiff received with his 1971 application:

We below describe the process we applied to determine the class that entered the University of Washington School of Law in September 1970. We anticipate that the same process will be applied in determining membership in the class of 1971.

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In assessing applications, we began by trying to identify applicants who had the potential for outstanding performance in law school. We attempted to select applicants for admission from that group on the basis of their ability to make significant contributions to law school classes and to the community at large.

For the purpose of a preliminary ranking of the applicants for the class of 1974, the junior-senior undergraduate grade point average and the Law School Admissions Test scores ¹ for each applicant were combined through a formula to yield a predicted first-year of law school grade average for the applicant. This preliminary index number is called the Predicted First-Year Average (PFYA). The relative weight of grades and test scores in this formula was determined on the basis of past experience at the law school. The same formula is used for all applicants in a given year. If an applicant has taken the LSAT more than once in the past 3 years, the average score is employed rather than the latest score; this is done to offset a learning effect which statistical studies by the Educational Testing Service indicates occurs as the result of the multiple taking of the test.

Plaintiff's PFYA as determined by the law school, was 76.23. This figure was calculated by using a formula combining plaintiff's junior-senior grade point average of 3.71, average LSAT score of 582 (512 plus 566 plus 668, divided by 3) ² and average writing test score component of 61 (62 plus 58 plus 64, divided by 3).

Ranking of applicants by PFYA was used to help organize the committee's processing of the applications. On the basis of the previous year's applicant group, the committee decided that most promising applicants for the class of 1974 would be defined as applicants with predicted first-year law school average over 77. Applicants with PFYAs above 77 were reviewed and decided by the full committee as they came in, in order to reach an early decision as to the acceptance of such students. Each of these files was assigned to a committee member for thorough review and for presentation to the committee.

Applicants with PFYAs below 74.5 were reviewed by the chairman of the committee, and were either rejected by him, or placed in a group for later review by the full committee. The decision of rejection or committee review of an application was based on the chairman's judgment derived from information in the applicant's file indicating whether the applicant had a significantly better potential for law study than the relatively low predicated first-year average tended to indicate. Cases of doubt were to be resolved in favor of deferring judgment until committee review could be undertaken.

Two exceptions were made in regard to applicants with PFYAs below 74.5. First, the law school had established a policy that persons who had been previously admitted but who were unable to enter, or forced to withdraw from, the law school because of induction into the military service, had a right to reenroll if they reapplied immediately upon honorable completion of their tour of duty. Second, all files of 'minority' applicants (which the committee defined for this purpose as including Black Americans, Chicano Americans American Indians and Philippine Americans ³ were considered by the full committee as warranting their attention, regardless of the PFYA of the...