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Texas teen becomes youngest Black law school graduate in U.S.

DALLAS — A north Texas teen made history this weekend as the youngest Black student to graduate from law school in the U.S.

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Haley Taylor Schlitz, of Fort Worth, graduated from the Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law on Friday, according to KXAN.

“I graduated high school at 13, graduated undergrad at 16. Actually for the longest time — like the first, maybe like 12 years, 13 years in my life — I actually wanted to be an ER doctor, because my mom’s an ER doctor,” Schlitz told the television station.

Schlitz’s parents took her out of public schools in the fifth grade and began home-schooling her, the ABA Journal reported.

When Schlitz was not allowed to take a test to enter the gifted program in public schools, her parents had her tested privately and discovered she was gifted, the teen told Texas Lawyer.

“Home-schooling helped me go at my own pace and thrive on my own terms,” Schlitz told the Morning News in 2019. “I was able to skip what I knew and do what’s at my intellectual level.”

Schlitz graduated from high school when she was 13 and attended the Texas Woman’s College. She graduated from college with associate’s and bachelor’s degrees. SMU was one of nine law schools that accepted Schlitz, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Schlitz was then accepted into SMU’s Dedman School of Law in 2019, KDFW reported.

She told ABC News that she plans to start studying for the bar exam soon. Schlitz told CBS News that she wants to focus on education policies either with a non-profit organization or as an elected official.