The fact that plan of board of control for legal education of Negro law student contemplated provision for legal education at the Negro Agricultural College instead of at the University of Florida and that temporary instruction at the University of Florida might result in student receiving part of instruction at a white law school and the remainder at a Negro law school did not render proposal invalid under Fourteenth Amendment. U.S.C.A.Const. Amend. 14.
The mere fact that under the plan the Board of Control proposes to enroll the relator in the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes instead of at the University of Florida maintained for whites is entirely without legal significance; as is also the fact that under the plan the relator may possibly receive part of his instruction at a law school maintained for whites and the remainder at a law school established exclusively for Negroes and finally receive his degree from the latter institution if ever he successfully completes his course of study. It is for each of the states to decide upon the method to be pursued by it for providing public education to its citizens; and so long as the method adopted does not infringe, impair or abridge the personal political rights of the citizen the decision cannot be made the subject of judicial interference. See Gong Lum v. Rice, 75 U.S. 78, 48 S.Ct. 91, 72 L.Ed. 172; Cumming v. Board of Education of Richmond County, 175 U.S. 528, 20 S.Ct. 197, 44 L.Ed. 262; State v. Witham, 179 Tenn. 250, 165 S.W.2d 378; Compare Sweatt v. Painter, 70 S.Ct. 848, reversing Tex.Civ.App., 210 S.W.2d 442; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Ed., 70 S.Ct. 851, reversing 87 F.Supp. 528.
As stated in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 1140, 41 L.Ed. 256, with respect to the effect of the Fourteenth Amendment in regard to state laws and regulations requiring segregation of races in state supported institutions:
'The object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but, in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distincations based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation, in places where they are liable to be brought into contact, do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power. The most common instance of this is connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and colored children, which have been held to be a valid exercise of the legislative power even by courts of states where the political rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly enforced. * * * The distinction between laws interfering with the political equality of the negro and those requiring the separation of the two races in schools, theaters, and railway carriages has been frequently drawn by this court.'
This holding has been expressly approved and followed in an unbroken line of decisions of the Federal Courts recognizing or upholding the validity of state laws which require segretation of races in state supported institutions or facilities, when such laws have been attacked on the ground that they result in unlawful discrimination. *615 See Cumming v. Board of Education of Richmond County, 175 U.S. 528, 20 S.Ct. 197, 44 L.Ed. 262; McCabe v. Atchison T. & F. R. Co., 235 U.S. 151, 35 S.Ct. 69, 59 L.Ed. 169; Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78, 48 S.Ct. 91, 72 L.Ed. 172; Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337, 59 S.Ct. 232, 83 L.Ed. 208; Sipuel v. Cklahoma Board of Regents, 332 U.S. 631, 68 S.Ct. 299, 92 L.Ed. 247.