Too old to attend law school? Not this 93-year-old, who is auditing courses at Yale
Yale University’s Sterling Law Building. Image from Shutterstock.
Harold Kent, 93, isn’t a sedentary kind of guy.
“I could never just hang around, go home to retire,” he tells the New Haven Register. “That’s not for me.”
Kent keeps busy working part time at a commercial real-estate firm and attending Yale Law School, where he is in his third-year auditing courses there, the newspaper reports. He got the go-ahead for the arrangement when he “walked in cold turkey” to the dean’s office and asked to speak with the dean.
The dean agreed to see Kent and, after some thought, agreed to the auditing arrangement as long as Kent gets permission from the professors who are teaching the courses.
Kent told the newspaper he wanted to attend law school when he was a student at Ohio State University, but his plans were altered as a result of World War II. He was six credits short of graduation when he “got pulled into the infantry” and served under Gen. George Patton.
When Kent left military service he went into the formal wear business, taking over a clothing business from his father when the older man retired. Kent once provided formal wear for George H.W. Bush when he led the CIA and outfitted George C. Scott, the actor who played Patton in the eponymous movie. Kent got a call to join the commercial real estate firm the same day he sold his business.
At Yale, Kent says the law students have accepted him as a student and they “could not be nicer.”
“It’s been absolutely a wonderful experience, to keep my mind working,” he tells the New Haven Register. “That’s the most important thing: You don’t become stagnant.”
Hat tip to Above the Law.
