Former Foster Care Student Expelled From High School Graduated From Howard Law School
(WASHINGTON, DC) Exclusive News: Alexis Hawkins, a student expelled from a Washington, D.C. high school as a teen, is now graduating from Howard University School of Law. ‘I just had to keep believing in myself, stay focused and not give up on my goals,” the 28-year-old told The Washington Post.
The HBCU graduate was out of school for six months after getting involved in a brawl when she was 15 years old at Ballou High School, located near the Congress Park neighborhood in southeast D.C. “Congress Park girls were known to fight — and Alexis was a fighter,” Edwin Buckner, a D.C. police officer who was patrolling Ballou High at the time, said. “She was also an A student and never bothered anyone. But she would not back down from a fight if it involved her neighborhood.”
When Hawkins resumed her education, she enrolled at the Woodland Job Corps Center and earned a GED. The D.C. native then saved enough money to attend Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, where she majored in criminal justice.
