Washburn Rural High School in Topeka, Kansas, where he was co-valedictorian, and the student body class president. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Government from Harvard University, graduating summa cum laude and first in his department. Kobach was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. The director of Harvard's Center for International Affairs, Professor Samuel P. Huntington, was Kobach's faculty advisor from 1984 to 1988. Huntington believed that migration, especially from Mexico and Latin America, represented the most perilous threat to what he called the "American identity." When Kobach taught law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Huntington's writings were required reading in the course. From Harvard, Kobach went on to earn a Doctor of Philosophy in politics from Brasenose College of Oxford University, having been selected for a Marshall Scholarship. Returning to the U.S., he earned a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1995, and became an editor of the Yale Law Journal. During this time, Kobach published two books: The Referendum: Direct Democracy in Switzerland (Dartmouth, 1994), and Political Capital: The Motives, Tactics, and Goals of Politicized Businesses in South Africa (University Press of America, 1990). Legal career From 1995 to 1996, Kobach clerked for Judge Deanell R. Tacha of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Lawrence, Kansas. He began his professorship at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law (UMKC) shortly thereafter. In 2001, President George W. Bush awarded him a White House Fellowship to work for Attorney General John Ashcroft. At the end of the fellowship, he stayed on as Counsel to the Attorney General. Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, he led a team of attorneys and researchers who formulated and established the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. In addition, he took part in work to reshape the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2002. After his government service ended, he returned to UMKC to teach law until he was elected Kansas Secretary of State. Immigration-related activism Litigation While running for Congress in 2004, Kobach represented out-of-state students on behalf of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in a lawsuit against the state of Kansas, challenging a state law which grants in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants. The suit was dismissed for lack of legal standing for the plaintiffs. In 2005, Kobach filed a lawsuit on behalf of FAIR's Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), challenging a similar law in California. In