*On this date in 1938, Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337, was decided.
This was a United States Supreme Court decision holding that states that provided a school to white students also had to provide in-state education to Blacks. States could satisfy this requirement by allowing blacks and whites to attend the same school or creating a second school for Blacks. The University of Missouri Law School Registrar, Silas Woodson Canada, refused admission to Lloyd Gaines because he was Black.
At the time, Blacks could attend no law school specifically in the state. Gaines cited that the refusal violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The State of Missouri had offered to pay for Gaines's tuition at an adjacent state's law school, which he turned down. The issue was whether Missouri violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by affording whites, not Blacks, the ability to attend law school within the state.
