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(KMSP) - A Yale University senior from Eden Prairie, Minnesota is among the latest group of U.S. Rhodes Scholars.
Riley Tillitt is one of 32 men and women selected out of 880 applicants for studies starting next fall at Oxford University in England.
But for now, Tillitt says he's still wrapping his head around the accomplishment.
"My jaw literally dropped," he said.
Tillitt is double majoring in History and Ethics, Politics and Economics at Yale. He is interested in reforming U.S. criminal justice and drug policies and plans to study public policy as well as criminology and criminal justice at Oxford.
"We really need to get our act together. What we're doing right now, what we've done the last 40 years - locking people up, the war on drugs - that clearly has failed," Tillitt said.
Riley's father Stephen Tillitt said these topics hit particularly close to home.
"Our family went through a terrible experience where Riley's older brother Max died of a heroin overdose over three years ago after struggling with addiction," he said.
Beverly Burrell, the woman who sold Max that fatal dose, was tried for third degree murder. But, instead of seeking the maximum penalty, Riley and his father asked the judge for leniency.
"I didn't see that a longer sentence for this woman - who is a mother - would add any value to anybody's life," Stephen Tillitt said.
Burrell was ultimately sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Riley wrote about the experience in the scholarship application, saying it has shaped his passion on the issue.
"I feel incredibly lucky and humbled, and I feel incredible pressure to do something positive and good for the world and pay it back some way or another," Riley Tillitt said.
This year’s winners included 21 women—the most ever---and almost half were immigrants or first generation Americans, including one undocumented American who is a DACA recipient.