22 Year-Old Cortlan Wickliff is Youngest African American to Graduate from Harvard Law
22 year-old Cortlan Wickliff will become the youngest African American to graduate from Harvard Law School.
Wickliff graduated from Rice University at just 19 years-old with a degree in bioengineering.
As a first-year law student, Wickliff seemed “puzzled and a bit overwhelmed” by the classroom comments made by his older and more experienced colleagues, said professor Charles Ogletree. But, as the semester progressed, Wickliff matured, Ogletree said.
And by the time Wickliff submitted his final criminal law paper as a second-year student, Ogletree said, “I saw remarkable advancement in his ability to comprehend complex legal issues but also present them in straightforward fashion.”
Wickliff’s paper was on the crack cocaine epidemic and resulting mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines that mandate certain amounts of jail time for certain crimes.
A law school degree is the second in a three-degree plan Wickliff created as an elementary school student. He decided to own and operate a medical device company, all before age 26. He learned that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. graduated from Boston University with a doctorate in theology at 26 and thought: “That seems really cool. I want to do that, too.”
What an impressive young man!
Congratulations to Cortlan Wickliff on his phenomenal achievements.
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