Gene Mitchell Gray was the first African American student who enrolled at UT as a result of a suit filed in 1951 in federal district court. Judge Robert L. Taylor ruled on the suit (in favor of the applicants for admission), but Judge Taylor did not put down an order to allow the plaintiffs to appeal the decision of the Eastern District Court that a single judge should preside. By the time the United States Supreme Court heard the appeal in January 1952, admissions policies had changed, and UT stated at argument that the students would be admitted as they had requested.
The case had sought admission by four African American students for graduate study (Lincoln Blakeney and Joseph Hutch Patterson to the Law School; Gene Gray and Jack Alexander to the Graduate School). A native of Knoxville, Gray had graduated from Swift Memorial Junior College in Rogersville before getting his Bachelor of Science degree at Knoxville College in 1950.
Gray enrolled in January 1952 for winter quarter and Blakeney in April for spring quarter. Gray lived with his wife and two children in Austin Homes at the time of his attendance at UT. Gray took courses for a year and a half (January 1952 to March 1953) and then transferred to Lehigh University.