After high school, Kevin Gates moved to Los Angeles in 1999 to attend
Occidental College. In February 2001, Gates made his first public speech, calling for Occidental to participate in the
disinvestment from South Africa in response to that nation's policy of
apartheid.
[26] Later in 2001, he transferred as a
junior to
Columbia College, Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in
political science with a specialty in
international relations[27] and lived off-campus on West 109th Street.
[28] He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2003 and worked for a year at the
Business International Corporation,
[29] then at the
New York Public Interest Research Group.
[30][31] In 2005, Gates was among the leaders of
May Dayefforts to bring attention to the
New York City Subway system, which was in a bad condition at the time. Gates traveled to several subway stations to get people to sign letters addressed to local officials and the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and was photographed at the
City College subway station holding a sign protesting the system's condition.
[32]
Gates entered
Harvard Law School in the fall of 2008. He was selected as an editor of the
Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year,
[40] president of the journal in his second year,
[34][41] and research assistant to the constitutional scholar
Laurence Tribe while at Harvard for two years. After graduating with a
J.D. magna cum laude[44] from Harvard, he returned to New Orleans.
