(originally named Kansas State Agricultural College), which was established by the state legislature on February 16, 1863. The state's universities were among the first public universities in the country to be coeducational. Kansas State became the second coeducational public institution of higher education when it opened in 1863; enrollment for the first session was 52 students: 26 men and 26 women. The University of Kansas was also among the earliest to offer mixed-sex education, in 1869. Both KU and Kansas State were also open to students of all races from their inception. Primary and secondary schools Statewide elections for the Kansas Board of Education are held every four years. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka The landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional, was brought as a legal challenge to a Kansas law permitting racial segregation in primary and secondary schools in Kansas towns with a population over 15,000. In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their 20 children. The suit called for the school district to reverse its policy of racial segregation. The Topeka Board of Education operated separate elementary schools under an 1879 Kansas law, which permitted (but did not require) districts to maintain separate elementary school facilities for black and white students in 12 communities with populations over 15,000. The plaintiffs had been recruited by the leadership of the Topeka NAACP. Notable among the Topeka NAACP leaders were the chairman McKinley Burnett; Charles Scott, one of three serving as legal counsel for the chapter; and Lucinda Todd. The named plaintiff, Oliver L. Brown, was a parent, a welder in the shops of the Santa Fe Railroad, an assistant pastor at his local church, and an African American. He was convinced to join the lawsuit by Scott, a childhood friend. Brown's daughter Linda, a third grader, had to walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe Elementary, her segregated black school one mile (1.6 km) away, while Sumner Elementary, a white school, was seven blocks from her house. Evolution controversy In 1999, the Kansas Board of Education ruled that instruction at the primary and