Vice President Kamala Harris was reportedly admitted to U.C. Law San Francisco under a hardship program that she allegedly didn’t qualify for.
The Legal Education Opportunity Program (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,” according to a UC Law SF Magazine article published in 2018.
The same report lists Harris as part of the school’s ’89 alumni who benefited from LEOP.
This, according to critic Laura Powell, a civil liberties attorney, is a big problem given that Harris was anything but disadvantaged.
“Kamala Harris’s mother came from the highest caste in India, but by moving to the U.S. and Canada, obtaining a prestigious degree, marrying a future Stanford professor, having a successful career as a cancer researcher, and sending her daughter to private schools, her daughter became unusually disadvantaged?” she wrote in a tweet Monday:
Kamala Harris was admitted to law school under a program for students “who have experienced major life hurdles, such as educational disadvantage, economic hardship, or disability.”
Kamala Harris’s mother came from the highest caste in India, but by moving to the U.S. and Canada,… pic.twitter.com/tqnx8OPnx4
— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) October 21, 2024
In another tweet, she offered proof of Harris’ privileged upbringing: A Los Angeles Times article from 2004 in which the current vice president’s mother, Shyamala G., recounted taking offense when some male college official assumed her daughter was from a poor background.
“What Shyamala G. Harris understood was that this man assumed her daughter must be an impoverished girl from the rough side of town, not a privileged child of foreign graduate students, whose academic pursuits led them to UC Berkeley,” the Times article reads.
In 2004, Kamala’s mother recounted to an LA Times reporter how she was taken aback when an educator didn’t realize Kamala came from a privileged background.
h/t @CardioNP pic.twitter.com/ntfHDEOozo
— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) October 21, 2024
Powell also drew attention to something Harris’ mother told a reporter in 2003 about their family’s upper-class status in India.
“We are Brahmins, that is the top caste,” she said. “Please do not confuse this with class, which is only about money. For Brahmins, the bloodline is the most important. My family, named Gopalan, goes back more than 1,000 years.”
As noted by Powell, “‘high ranking,’ ‘upper class,’ and ‘top caste’ are not phrases you would use to describe the family of someone from an underprivileged background.”
True.
I made the reference to caste because this is how Kamala’s own mother has their family’s position in India to a reporter in 2003:
“We are Brahmins, that is the top caste. Please do not confuse this with class, which is only about money. For Brahmins, the bloodline is the most… pic.twitter.com/EDvtc86ua1
— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) October 21, 2024
As for LEOP, it was, according to Powell, a veritable race-based affirmative action program.
“Students who claimed to be eligible for the LEOP because of some special hardship they suffered would have their claims of being disadvantaged verified via a phone call by members of the student organization associated with the applicant’s race,” she tweeted.
“The phone interviews were used by some students to screen out conservative candidates—to avoid future ‘Clarence Thomases,’ as one student explained. This would have been the process in place when Kamala Harris applied to law school in 1986. According to her resume, she also served as President of the ‘Black Law Student’s [sic] Association,’ so she likely participated in the process of selecting admittees to the LEOP program while she was a law student as well,” she added.
In 1992, three years after Kamala graduated from Hastings Law School (a public university), there was a controversy after the dean of the law school realized the extent of student group involvement in admissions to the program for disadvantaged students (called LEOP).
Students… pic.twitter.com/7BVVNz2K7j
— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) October 21, 2024
Responding to these findings from Powell, other critics were shocked, outraged, and disgusted.
Look:
That’s pretty bad, Kamala took a spot that could’ve opened doors for someone truly disadvantaged.
— Queen of Hearts (@QueenOfHeartsSF) October 21, 2024
Like Pocahontas getting high-paying jobs as a professor because of her “high cheekbones “. Disgusting.
— RightandIrish (@RightandIrish) October 21, 2024
She is using her (legit) Black identity to take the handicap granted to poor blacks, despite being a rich one.
Kind of like Elizabeth Warren, but less egregious. Still disgusting but somehow not as disgusting.
— Blushing Pervert (@nomseki) October 22, 2024
Gaming the system. Just like others in DC…like Crazy Horse Warren. It breaks my heart and pisses me off that those of us who clawed our way through our careers wouldn’t think to do this and mostly, they took space that was really needed by those less fortunate.
— Laurie (@UltraLaurie) October 21, 2024
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