Jacob Jones Jr. was enrolled in Dunbar School, a public school for Black children. In Muskogee County, schools were funded by property taxes, but the amount of taxpayer money available for white schools far exceeded the amount that could be used to pay for separate Black schools. There were essentially two distinct pools of taxpayer money that the Board of Education could access: A large pool of money for white schools and a smaller one for Black schools. Because of this, the Board set two different budgets each year, and allotted much more money to running and maintaining white schools because there was more money available. Unfortunately, the Black schools received so little funding that they ran out of money mid-year. The Board was not legally allowed to take funds that had been budgeted for the white schools and use them for the Black schools. So, they simply closed the Black schools, including Dunbar. The Black students were left without any public educational options. Jacob Jones Sr. sued the Board, claiming they were denying his son equal protection under the law. He asked the court to force the Board to lump all taxpayer money together and make it available to whatever schools needed it, regardless of students’ race or color. Unfortunately, the Board of Education did not have power to control how Muskogee County raised or pooled their tax funds; that power belonged to the Muskogee County Excise Board. Because of this, the lower court ruled against Jones. He appealed. The Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed with Jones that the Black schools had been "shamefully" discriminated against, saying "those responsible for financing, operating, and controlling the separate schools of Muskogee are willfully disregarding the Constitution of Oklahoma, and intentionally ignoring the statutes of this state." Despite this, the Supreme Court unfortunately affirmed the lower court’s ruling. They suggested Jones had asked for the wrong remedy. He lost the case.