Vice President Kamala Harris was admitted to law school through University of California-San Francisco’s Legal Education Opportunity Program for students with “educational disadvantage, economic hardship, or disability,” according to the law school’s magazine.
Democratic nominee Harris is a 1989 graduate of the program, according to a 2018 article in UC Law SF Magazine.
“LEOP offers admission to approximately 50 high-achieving students each year—up to 20 percent of the class—who have experienced major life hurdles, such as educational disadvantage, economic hardship, or disability,” the article says. “The majority are students of color.”
“Besides traditional admissions criteria, such as grades and LSAT scores,” the article continues, “the program also considers students’ overall potential and the obstacles they’ve overcome.”
The Legal Education Opportunity Program provides extra help to its law students, “offering a weeklong orientation, academic counseling, practice exams, and help preparing for the bar exam and job interviews, among other resources and services.”
The Harris campaign did not respond to The Daily Signal’s question about which “major life hurdles” qualified the vice president for the Legal Education Opportunity Program.
After moving to the U.S. from India, Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and became a renowned researcher and professor.
Shyamala worked at the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin, spent time in France and Italy, and received tenure at McGill University in Montreal. The would-be vice president lived in Canada with her mother and sister from age 12 until high school graduation.
From 1975-1976, when Harris was 12, professors at several universities, including McGill, made an average of $28,751 per year, according to a study of professor salaries at 61 schools from 1975-67. This was over double the median household income at the time, which was $11,800.
Harris’ father, Donald Harris, also held a P.h.D from Berkeley. He became a tenured professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, then returned to California in 1972 to become a professor of economics at Stanford University. Harris’ parents divorced in 1972.
The New Yorker described Donald Harris as “a renowned Marxist economist from Jamaica who taught at Stanford University for decades.”
The UCSF Law School did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about what qualified Harris for the program.
Harris has faced multiple accusations of plagiarism in the past week, as investigative journalists uncovered passages in her books and her written testimony that copy long passages elsewhere verbatim.
