From trials to triumph: Rehan Staton’s journey from sanitation worker to Harvard Law grad

DMV-native Rehan Staton was amid the extra than 700 graduates who walked the stage at the 2023 Harvard Regulation College graduation ceremony on Thursday.

Tens of countless numbers of folks graduate regulation school each 12 months with exclusive ordeals, and Staton is no diverse. Even though he has several good reminiscences, he said his journey to achievements has been a steep uphill fight due to the fact he was in elementary school.

“Ever because second quality when my mom ended up leaving, [my family] started off to run into a large amount of economical insecurities,” Staton, 27, informed ABC News.

Despite the fact that he mentioned his father worked continually whilst raising Staton and his brother by himself, Staton and his household dealt with housing insecurity brought about by a absence of funds.

“There have been holes in the ceilings. There was black mildew festering in the basement. There had been a ton of parts in the residence that failed to have flooring, it was pretty much below code, truthfully. And the residence didn’t have heat for practically a decade. It was a actually terrible problem,” he stated, describing the household in which he was raised.

His living and monetary scenario adversely afflicted his instructional expertise, and in accordance to him, the teachers he experienced developing up didn’t make the condition any better. Staton recalled tries to place him in distinctive instruction classes and a instructor comparing his mind to a gym cupboard, alluding to his intended lack of intelligence, which Staton explained built him discouraged.

By large college, his grades experienced slipped, and he graduated with scarcely a 2. GPA and a small SAT rating, hindering his university application procedure.

Staton turned to a common company for which most of the adult men in his spouse and children experienced worked, trying to get to assistance his home and spouse and children financially: Bates Trucking and Trash Elimination.

The Bladensburg, Maryland, sanitation company furnished Staton with the stepping stone he essential to jump-start out his everyday living. Staton reported it was his colleagues at Bates Trucking and Trash Removing who aided him reapply for higher education, and he eventually got acknowledged to Bowie State College.

Staton finished up transferring to the College of Maryland and graduating in Wintertime 2018 as the undergraduate graduation speaker. Having said that, he shortly began experiencing even additional hardships that set him back again.

In 2019, Staton was defeat with an unfamiliar sickness that remaining him bedridden, dropping from 150 lbs to 117 lbs .. Due to his inability to work through that time, and his family’s continued monetary insecurity, his residence was approximately foreclosed on. To reduce foreclosure, his father, who experienced not too long ago endured a stroke, was pressured to return to do the job.

It was then that Staton realized he had to do a little something.

“If I can get to a location that has the means, it takes out the intermediary,” Staton recalled pondering. “I can choose care of the wellbeing issues. I can consider care of the foreclosure. I can choose care of my father currently being in a placement in which he has to compromise his health.”

He additional, “And I claimed, ‘Let’s get into Harvard Regulation University.'”

Staton began studying for the LSAT whilst nursing himself again to wellness, while he was not able to look for specialist tutoring or assistance because of to his money circumstance.

“My cousin would arrive about each individual one day, and he would hold, like, a chilly rag above the back again of my neck whilst I analyzed so I could distract myself from nausea, mainly because I felt poor 24 hrs a day,” he mentioned, incorporating that he never observed out what he was sick with. “I would analyze like that for several hours.”

Considerably less than a yr just after becoming ill, Staton took the the LSAT and was successful — and on March 16, 2020, he was recognized into Harvard Regulation Faculty.

A viral online video of Staton reacting to his Harvard acceptance was eventually picked up by various media retailers, in the end catching the eye of award-successful actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry, who opted to shell out for the entirety of Staton’s law college tenure.

Even with the hurdles he faced to get to the commencement stage on Thursday, Diane Rosenfeld, lecturer and founding director of the Gender Violence Program, emphasised that Staton, who took her Gender Violence, Legislation and Social Justice system at Harvard the spring ahead of he graduated, is significantly additional than his tribulations.

“He surely overcame a great deal of road blocks, and it’s portion of who he is, but it also will not define who he is,” Rosenfeld explained.

Harvard Regulation seminar lecturer Mandy DeFilippo agreed, telling ABC Information that Staton epitomized the purpose of her system, titled “Top from the Middle,” which Staton took.

“What is special, I consider, about him is his humility and standpoint,” reported DeFillippo, managing director and COO of Authorized & Compliance, Risk and Operations at Citadel Securities. “He stays humble and grounded, notwithstanding all of the achievements and notice that he so richly deserves.”

Staton also by no means forgot where he came from, regularly supplying again to his community and the employees at Harvard University. Most a short while ago, he assisted increase $70,000 for the university’s janitors and assistance staff members.

“At just about every point in my daily life, I can say it was by way of the act of someone’s reciprocity and the group that I was authorized to get to the up coming degree,” Staton said.

Staton also produced The Reciprocity Impact, an corporation to increase visibility and the total top quality of daily life for assist workers workers although bringing college students and guidance team closer.

Bates Trucking and Trash Removal assisted co-found the organization and donated $50,000 to assistance leap-start off the result in.

Staton will be transferring to New York Town before long, working at the Paul Weiss legislation organization, and hopes to ultimately rekindle his appreciate of sporting activities on the business enterprise aspect and at some point own a sports workforce.

“He does not forget wherever he comes from, and I genuinely believe that is heading to be a portion of his tale permanently,” DeFillippo explained. “Going forward, that’s going to be a part of what he is in a position to deliver to the desk and what will keep him grounded in his point of view as he moves by the earth.”