plaintiff, but never explained what his initial objections might have been. At first Canada did not realize that Gaines was black, since the application form did not ask for prospective students to indicate their race. Only when he received Gaines' transcript from Lincoln University did he understand. He left Gaines's application on his desk, without taking any action, although the young man was otherwise qualified for admission to the law school. Canada sent Gaines a telegram urging him to meet with the registrar to discuss "further advice" and "possible arrangement". Gaines wrote both the president of Lincoln to ask what this meant, and to Frederick Middlebush, president of University of Missouri, requesting admission to the law school. Middlebush never replied. Lawsuit The official policy of Missouri was to pay the "out of state" expenses for education of African Americans who wished to study law until such time as demand was sufficient to build a separate law school within the state for them. At first Houston and Redmond hoped that the ruling in University of Maryland v. Murray (1936), which they had won when Maryland's Court of Appeals invalidated a similar provision there, would persuade Missouri to allow Gaines to attend without legal resistance. They began planning security arrangements for him. They filed a writ of mandamus in January 1936 ordering that Gaines's application be considered. When Middlebush asked the university's board how it should respond, the lawyers recommended defending their policy. They adopted a resolution formally denying Gaines's admission, arguing that segregated higher education was the public policy of the state, and that Gaines had the legal option of attending law school outside Missouri at the state's expense. With Gaines's application formally denied, the mandamus petition was now moot. Houston and the NAACP filed another petition, State ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, arguing that the law school's refusal to admit him on racial grounds was a violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights. The university responded with the same points it had made in the board's resolution. Further, it said that Gaines should have sued Lincoln to compel it to open a law school. Gaines and his lawyers argued in response that lawyers educated out of state lost the benefit of courses that were specific to Missouri law, as well as the connections and firsthand experience of the state's courts that were gained by an in-state legal education. The NAACP did