1940-
Medical Student and Litigant

From Engineer to Doctor.

Allan Bakke was a symbol of the white backlash to civil rights and affirmative action programs. Son of a Minneapolis mailman and a teacher, Bakke originally was graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in engineering. To complete his obligations to NROTC, Bakke served four years in the marines, including a tour in Vietnam. He later maintained his experience in the war caused his interests to turn from engineering to medicine, but upon his return to America, he received a master's degree from Stanford, and became an engineer at the NASA Ames Research Center, south of San Francisco. At Ames, Bakke designed experimental equipment to test the effects of weightlessness and radiation on animals. The work furthered his interests in medicine, and working full-time, he enrolled in a full schedule of premed courses, and volunteered...