DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312 (1974), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the case had become moot and so declined to render a decision on the merits. American student Marco DeFunis, who had been denied admission to the University of Washington School of Law in the state of Washington before he was provisionally admitted during the pendency of the case, was slated to graduate within a few months of the decision being rendered. The Court rejected the assertion that the case was in one of two exceptions to the mootness doctrine that were raised by the plaintiff. The case did not constitute "voluntary cessation" on the part of the defendant law school, as the plaintiff was now in his final quarter, and the law school could take no action to deny him the ability to graduate. Also, it was not a question that was "capable of repetition, yet evading review" because the plaintiff would never again face the situation, and others who might raise the same complaint in the future might be able to receive the courts' full review. DeFunis argued that materials brought to light during discovery and entered into evidence in the trial court showed that his initial denial of admission to the law school was the result of the operation of the law school's affirmative action policy, favoring the admission of minority applicants over better-qualified white candidates. Although the Court refused to consider the case on the merits in DeFunis, the issue of affirmative action returned to the Court without any problem of mootness, with an opinion on the merits achieved in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Background In 1970, Marco DeFunis, a Sephardic Jewish man, applied for entry to the law program at the University of Washington. He was denied, but after filing a lawsuit, a state court ordered that he was to be admitted in the fall of 1971. Later, the Supreme Court of Washington reversed the court’s ruling so DeFunis appealed to the US Supreme Court. By the time the Court heard the case in early 1974, it was DeFunis’ final year of the law program. DeFunis, believing he had been rejected because of affirmative action, thought the school had taken applicants who were approved because of not their accomplishments but their race. He took his case to court and stated that of