State ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control

• Decision Date: 01 August 1952
• Citation: 60 So.2d 162
• Parties: STATE et rel. HAWKINS v. BOARD OF CONTROL et al.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 162

60 So.2d 162

STATE et rel. HAWKINS v. BOARD OF CONTROL et al.

Supreme Court of Florida, en Banc.

Aug. 1, 1952.

H. E. Hill, Daytona Beach, for relator.

Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., and Frank J. Heintz, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondents.

SEBRING, Chief Justice.

This is the third appearance of this cause in this Court. It is now before the Court on a motion by the relator for the entry of a peremptory writ notwithstanding the return heretofore filed by the respondents.

The cause was initiated by the relator on May 30, 1949, when he filed a petition for a writ of mandamus to require the members of the State Board of Control to admit him to the College of Law of the University of Florida for attendance at a summer session of the first-year law class to begin in the summer of 1949. In due course the members of the Board of Control filed their return to the alternative writ issued in the cause, and, on April 13, 1950, the relator filed his motion for a peremptory writ notwithstanding the return.

Upon due consideration of the issues raised by the pleadings, the Court denied the motion, because the relator had not shown himself entitled, under the pleadings, to the relief sought, in that (1) he did not have pending, at the time he filed his motion, an application for admission to a current or future first-year law class at any state maintained institution of higher learning; the application formerly submitted by him being only for admission to the first-year class of the College of Law of the University of Florida for attendance at the 1949 summer session; and (2), assuming the regulations of the Board of Control requiring all applicants for admission to keep their applications current to be an unreasonable regulation, it was plain from the facts alleged in the return filed by the Board of Control, and admitted by the relator's motion to be true, that the State of Florida, acting through the Board of Control, had established a school of law at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, which is a state institution maintained exclusively for Negroes, to which the Board was ready to admit the relator, provided he made his application for admission within the time allowed for students to apply for admission to a course in law at a tax-supported law school in Florida; that the Board of Control was prepared to offer to the relator 'facilities for legal education at a Negro college which [were] * * * substantially equal to those offered within the state at any taxsupported institution of higher learning whose enrollment [under the Florida Constitution] is restricted to white students'; and that the Board stood ready 'to furnish law instruction, temporarily, at the State university maintained exclusively for white students, in the event adequate facilities for teaching the course [were] not actually and physically available at the state law school established for Negroes at the time of relator's application and enrollment.' See State ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control, Fla., 47 So.2d 608, 616.

In the opinion handed down by the Court, the issues between the parties were decided as a matter of pleading and not upon the basis of facts determined after the submission of proofs. But because of the public importance of the questions presented, the Court, in the interest of justice, did not enter a final judgment quashing the alternative writ and dismissing the cause (as it could have done under well-established rules of pleading and procedure), but left the matter open in order to accord to the relator the privilege, should he see fit to avail himself of it, of renewing his application for admission to a taxsupported law school and then of proving by competent evidence, if he could produce such proof, that the allegations of the return, which as a matter of pleading he had admitted to be true, were not true as a matter of fact; in that the facilities offered at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College did not, in truth, afford him the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution.

That such was this Court's purpose in entering the interlocutory order should be plain to anyone from even a casual reading of the opinion, for the opinion concludes: 'Due to the nature of the issues arising out of the pleadings, it is our conclusion that the entry of a final order herein should be withheld and the jurisdiction of the cause retained until it be shown to the satisfaction of this court either that the Board of Control has furnished, or has failed to furnish, to the relator, in accordance with the principles stated in this opinion, and after his due application for enrollment, such opportunities and facilities for pursuing his desired course of study as are substantially equal to those afforded all other students duly enrolled in the same or a like course of study at any of the taxsupported institutions of higher learning within the State wherein such course is offered.

'Either party to this cause may apply in this proceeding for the entry of an appropriate order finally disposing of the case, after due and regular application for enrollment has been made by the relator and such opportunities and facilities have or have not been made available to him in such a tax supported...