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November 9
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1938
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December 12
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1938
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State of Missouri ex rel Gaines v Canada, Registrar of the University of Missouri, et al
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305
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337
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59 S Ct 232 83 L Ed 208 1938 US LEXIS 440
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The Circuit Court denied the writ The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the judgment against Gaines, 113 S W2d 783
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Remanded to lower courts
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States that provide only one educational institution must allow blacks and whites to attend if there is no separate school for blacks
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1938
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Hughes
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Brandeis, Stone, Roberts, Black, Reed
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McReynolds
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Butler
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US Const Amend XIV
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'',
305 U.S. 337 (1938), was a
United States Supreme Court decision holding that states that provide a school to white students must provide in-state education to blacks as well. States can satisfy this requirement by allowing blacks and whites to attend the same school or creating a second school for blacks.
Petitioner
Lloyd Gaines was refused admission at
University Of Missouri School of Law because he is black; he was otherwise qualified. State statute suggests the eventual construction of a separate law school for blacks and provides scholarships to send them to neighboring states, but bars their admission at Mizzou. Gaines' lawyer, famed civil rights attorney
Charles Hamilton Houston , argued that the discrimination was in violation of the
Fourteenth Amendment ’s
Equal Protection Clause and requested a
Writ Of Mandamus to compel admission.
Does providing for the legal education of Missouri blacks in other states satisfy equal protection?
No. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Hughes held that when the state provides legal training, it must provide it to every qualified person to satisfy equal protection. It cannot send them to other states, nor can it condition that training for one group of people (such as blacks) on levels of demand from that group. Key to the court’s conclusion was that there was no provision for legal education of blacks in Missouri, which is where Missouri law guaranteeing equal protection applies. To the court, sending Gaines to another state would have been irrelevant. McReynold’s dissent emphasized a body of case law with sweeping statements about state control of education before suggesting the possibility that—despite the majority opinion—Mizzou could still deny Gaines admission.
This decision does not quite strike down
Separate But Equal education as upheld in
Plessy V. Ferguson (
1896 ). Instead, it provides that if there is only a single school, students of all races are eligible for admission, thereby striking down segregation by exclusion where the government provides just one school. Though this case didn’t go as far as
Brown V. Board Of Education (
1954 ) would, it was a step in that direction.
