[1] The Registrar at the Law School of the University of Missouri, Silas Woodson Canada, refused admission to Lloyd Gaines because he was black.

Justice James C. McReynolds'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, Missouri could still deny Gaines admission.

The decision did not quite strike down separate but equal facilities, upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

The Supreme Court did not overturn Plessy v. Ferguson or violate the "separate but equal" precedents, but began to concede the difficulty and near-impossibility of a state maintaining segregated Black and White institutions that could never be truly equal.

This case helped forge the legal framework for Brown v. Board of Education, which banned segregation in public schools.