This case concerns Glen De Ronde, a white male who was denied admission to the King Hall, the School of Law at the University of California, Davis in 1975, and chose to challenge the constitutionality of the consideration of "ethnic minority status" in the admissions process. De Ronde "sought mandamus in the Yolo County Superior Court against the Regents of the University of California and the Dean of King Hall...to compel his admission to King Hall and to recover damages for his exclusion." The ACLU filed an amicus brief in support of the University of California.

The court found that, given the criteria used to select students for admission to the law school, De Ronde would have been denied admission irregardless of any consideration of race. The court upheld the constitionality of admissions decisions where race was given equal weight to other factors such as leadership ability or exceptional academic achievement, and held up as an example the admissions process at Harvard University, where "the weight attributed to a particular quality may vary from year to year depending upon the 'mix' both of the student body and the applicants for the incoming class." The court noted that nothing in any previous Supreme Court judgements prohibits such a practice, which was conceived of in good faith and for educational purposes, and that the practice violates neither the federal Constitution nor the California Constitution.