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19781776 Club

Court strikes UC Davis quota, admits Bakke; race may still factor in admissions

Nine justices, six opinions: the 16-seat reserved program is void, but no majority forms to bar race as one factor among many in college selection.

By 1978, affirmative action in higher education had been tested in courts for years without a definitive ruling — the Supreme Court had dodged the question in 1974 when the plaintiff in DeFunis v. Odegaard graduated before a decision was reached. Allan Bakke, a Marine veteran and NASA engineer who had been twice rejected by UC Davis Medical School while minority applicants with lower scores were admitted through a program reserving 16 of 100 seats, forced the question back onto the Court's docket. On June 28, 1978, nine justices issued six opinions: the quota was struck down, Bakke was admitted, and race-conscious admissions without rigid numbers were allowed to stand…

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More from June 28
1776

Parker's nine warships bombard Fort Sullivan; Moultrie's palmetto walls swallow the cannonballs

Clinton's land assault stalls at an unwadeable channel, one British ship sits grounded on a sandbar, and the fleet withdraws up the coast.
1776

Washington's own bodyguard hangs before 20,000 in New York

Thomas Hickey, an Irish-born private in the Life Guards, was caught passing counterfeit money, then talked too freely in prison about a far larger plot against the Commander-in-Chief.
1865

Meade stands down the Army of the Potomac; it ceases to exist, two years to the day after he took command

The army that bled at Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness is disbanded before summer is out.
17451776 Club
Four thousand New England volunteers with no British regulars have cracked the "American Dunkirk," the stone fortress France spent thirty million livres to make impregnable.
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Read the full June 28 edition →Everything that happened on June 28 →
More from Cold War America
1979

A US spy satellite catches a double flash near Antarctica; no one will say what caused it

Vela 6911's sensors record the exact signature built to catch an atmospheric nuclear blast.
1952

Nixon goes on television and refuses to give up the dog

Facing calls to quit the ticket, the senator lays open his bank accounts and says he is keeping Checkers no matter what.
1957

Eisenhower orders troops into Little Rock to open Central High's doors

The same Arkansas Guard Governor Faubus used to bar nine Black students is now ordered to protect them.
1964

Warren Commission hands Johnson its verdict: Oswald acted alone

Ten months of testimony from 552 witnesses ends with a single conclusion: no conspiracy, foreign or domestic.
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