Formally designated "An Act to Prohibit White and Colored Persons from Attending the Same School," the bill was introduced in the Kentucky House of Representatives by Carl Day (D) in January 1904, and signed into law by Governor J.C.W.
The Kentucky Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented, as he had done with Plessy v. Ferguson, as he thought that it was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause and was a governmental intrusion on citizens' private lives.
The Supreme Court, fifty years later, took a position similar to Justice Harlan in its ruling on Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka.
With a challenge grant of $200,000 from Andrew Carnegie, the trustees raised the matching funds and purchased 444.4 ac of farmland in Shelby County.
[4] The Day Law became illegal upon the Supreme Court's decision in 1954 in the landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka.