In the case of Leslie Miller, Inc. v. Arkansas in 1956, the U.S Supreme Court ruled on a dispute involving state contract laws and racial discrimination. The plaintiff, Leslie Miller Inc., was an African-American owned construction company that had submitted the lowest bid for a state-funded project but was denied the contract due to their race by Arkansas State Highway Commission. The court held that this action violated equal protection under law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of US Constitution which prohibits states from denying any person within its jurisdiction equal protection under law including matters related to public contracts. This ruling affirmed that government entities cannot discriminate based on race when awarding contracts funded with taxpayer money.

In the dissenting opinion for Leslie Miller, Inc. v. Arkansas, Justice Frankfurter disagreed with the majority's decision to uphold an Arkansas statute that required contractors on public works projects to pay their workers a wage equal to or greater than the prevailing local wage rate. He argued that this law was unconstitutional because it interfered with interstate commerce by favoring local labor over non-local labor and thus violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S Constitution. Furthermore, he contended that such laws could lead to economic protectionism among states which would undermine national unity and impede free trade between states.