NEW YORK — A Clarksdale, Mississippi, native will spend his final semester of law school as one of the top law students in the country.
Damonta Morgan, a Columbia Law School student, was selected for the Phillips Fellowship opportunity, awarded to only two law students every year by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Solicitor General (OSG).
Columbia Law calls Morgan a star student and leader, and he is featured in a profile on the school’s website.
As a Phillips Fellow, Morgan will support the work of OSG attorneys in Washington as they supervise and conduct government cases litigated in the U.S. Supreme Court.
After his fellowship, Morgan will return to his home state and clerk for Judge Carlton W. Reeves of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
"Mississippi is always going to be a part of my life," Morgan says.
Now in his final semester of law school, Morgan’s other accomplishments include:
- Co-founding The Black Men’s Initiative @ CLS, an intentional community among Black men who are, or have studied, at Columbia Law.
- Serving as a law clerk on the appellate staff of the U.S. Department of Justice.
- Serving as co-president of Columbia Law’s chapter of the American Constitution Society.
Damonta received a bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University and a master’s degree in education policy at Teachers College, Columbia University.
In 2019, Damonta was chosen to speak at Teachers College’s convocation ceremony, where he called on his graduating class to be "restless enough, in the face of the injustices we’ve been given, to act."
