In the 1955 case Florida ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control of Florida et al., Virgil Darnell Hawkins, an African American man, sought admission to the University of Florida's law school but was denied due to his race. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hawkins, stating that he could not be denied admission based on his race under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, despite this ruling, state officials continued to deny him entry and instead offered him a scholarship to attend an out-of-state institution which accepted black students - a common practice at that time known as "tuition equalization" or "out-of-state aid". This decision marked another step towards desegregation in education following Brown v. Board Education (1954), reinforcing that racial discrimination within public educational institutions is unconstitutional.

In the dissenting opinion for Florida ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control of Florida, Justice Felix Frankfurter argued that the majority's decision to force immediate desegregation was an overreach and a violation of states' rights. He contended that while racial segregation is indeed unconstitutional as per Brown v. Board of Education, it should be up to individual states to determine their own timeline for implementing desegregation in public institutions like universities. In his view, forcing immediate compliance could lead to resistance and unrest among those who were not ready or willing to accept such changes yet; thus potentially undermining the very goal they sought - equal treatment under law regardless race or color.