EX-TRASH COLLECTOR REHAN STATON GRADUATED FROM HARVARD LAW
A Maryland trash collector rejected by every college he first applied to was accepted to Harvard Law School. Rehan Staton’s road there ran through a garbage truck, a free tutor and a crew of sanitation workers who told him to go back to school.
Staton, from Bowie, Maryland, was accepted to Harvard Law on March 16, 2020, ABC News reported. Harvard Law School said his GPA had been 2.0 at one point and that every school he applied to had turned him down.
Staton said his childhood was privileged until he turned 8, with loving parents, an older brother, private school and a tutor. Then his mother left the country and his father lost his job.
“I was always angry and hungry. It affected my academic work at school, and I started to perform horribly,” Staton said in an ABC interview.
From a cold house to the trash truck
Food got scarce and the heat was too expensive, Staton said. “I would have to sleep with a heavy jacket on when it was cold,” he said.
He went from straight A’s to near the bottom of his class and slept at school because it was warm. A teacher told him he needed special education, he said.
His father found help at a local community center, where an aerospace engineer tutored Staton for free. “I ended up making honor roll the rest of the year,” Staton said.
He trained in boxing and martial arts in high school. “I won a lot of martial arts competitions,” he said.
Then severe tendonitis hit both his shoulders in his senior year. He said he could not raise either arm above his head for months and had no insurance for physical therapy.
After the rejections, Staton took a job at a local sanitation company. Harvard Law said he started at 18, cleaning dumpsters and riding on the trash truck.
His coworkers were not having it. “What are you doing here?” they asked, Staton said, adding that they told him, “You’re too young to be here. Go to college, and come back if it doesn’t work out.”
“It was the sanitation workers that lifted me up to make me even want to go to school,” he said.
The crew brought Staton to the attention of company managers, who connected him with a Bowie State University professor. After the professor advocated for him, the school reversed its rejection.
Harvard Law said he received a food scholarship after he was admitted. His older brother, Reggie, left college to work so the family could keep its home, Staton said.
“My brother knew I’d be stuck if I didn’t jump on this opportunity and go to school because of my grades,” Staton said.
Staton earned a 4.0 GPA at Bowie State and transferred to the University of Maryland. There he was president of the undergraduate history association, a history representative on the dean’s cabinet and the graduation speaker.
He kept collecting garbage while he studied, working shifts around his classes. “I had to give up any sort of social life,” he said.
After college, Staton had an unexplained health decline and took a job at a political consulting firm in Washington, D.C. He took the LSAT while working full time and was accepted to other schools, including USC, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, ABC reported.
Staton said his family’s sacrifices paid off. “It made me feel like my brother and my dad’s sacrifices were not in vain. We did it,” he said.
What happened next
Tyler Perry later paid for Staton’s entire law-school tenure, ABC reported.
Staton graduated from Harvard Law School on May 25, 2023. “Things are on an upward trajectory. We made people smile through it. I’m just excited,” he told NBC Washington.
He did not forget the people who cleaned the buildings around him. NBC Washington reported that he used his own money to buy Amazon gift cards for Harvard custodians and organized an awards ceremony for them, and that some custodians were surprised he spoke to them at all.
Staton founded The Reciprocity Effect, an organization focused on support-staff visibility and quality of life. ABC reported he helped raise $70,000 for university janitors and support staff.
ABC also reported he planned to move to New York City, with hopes of getting into sports business and one day owning a sports team.
Staton’s LinkedIn profile lists him as an M&A associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, starting in September 2023.
