Kiah Duggins was returning from visiting her mother, who was undergoing surgery in Kansas, when the civil rights attorney was killed in a plane crash in Washington, D.C this week.

The 30-year-old civil rights lawyer was scheduled to join the faculty at Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C., this fall, the university said Thursday.

When I found out she got into Harvard Law. I mean, of course, she did,” one of her undergraduate professors said.

Several people online paid tribute to Kiah Duggins, a 30-year-old civil rights attorney and former Miss Kansas contestant who was identified as one of the 64 people on board the American Airlines flight,

A Harvard Law School alum known for her pro bono legal work was one of the 67 people who died Wednesday when an airliner collided with a military helicopter in Washington, D.C. , was set to join the teaching staff at Howard University School of Law in the fall, the school said in a Facebook post. She graduated from the school in 2021.

Civil rights attorney Kiah Duggins was among the 64 passengers and crew on the American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington, D.C., that plunged into the Potomac River Wednesday evening after colliding with a military helicopter.