CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAWS - EXCLUSION OF NEGRO FROM LAW SCHOOL OF STATE UNIVERSITY

Authors

Fred C. Newman, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

Petitioner, a negro, was refused admission to the law school of the State University of Missouri solely upon the ground of his race. While the state of Missouri assumed to provide reasonable tuition fees for the legal education of negro residents of Missouri in other states and possibly contemplated providing opportunities for professional training for negroes within the state at some future date, it did not provide for any instruction in law for negroes within the state. The Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed the judgment of the circuit court quashing an alternative writ of mandamus and denying a peremptory writ of mandamus which petitioner sought in order to compel the curators of the university to admit him. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. Held, the ruling of the Supreme Court of Missouri was error, for it denied petitioner the equal protection of the laws in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, two judges dissenting. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, (U. S. 1938) 59 S. Ct. 232; petition for rehearing denied, (U.S. 1939) 83 L. Ed. 320.

Recommended Citation

Fred C. Newman, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAWS - EXCLUSION OF NEGRO FROM LAW SCHOOL OF STATE UNIVERSITY, 37 Mich. L. Rev. 649 (1939).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol37/iss4/15