Affirmative action helps create diverse classes, and years of research have shown that students of all races and ethnicities benefit from that diversity with higher levels of social, emotional and cognitive skills, including critical thinking and problem solving. Affirmative action only benefits students of color The court also ruled, however, that race could be used as one of several factors in college admissions to create a diverse class. Supreme Court struck down the use of racial quotas in a 1978 ruling involving Allan Bakke, a white man who was rejected twice for admission to UC Davis medical school even though he had higher grades and test scores than students of color who were admitted.
