In My Father’s Footsteps

By Alex Wise ’24

When people talk about the reciprocal effect of social justice work, I know they’re usually talking about how satisfying it is to help other people and how it gives them a positive sense of self-worth. I’ve felt that, too. 

But for me, it’s also meant something else.

I’ve always been close to my parents, and now I’ve found myself getting even closer to them thanks to the work I did with CASA Pitzer.

I was drawn to the social justice work being done by CASA Pitzer, which is led by Professor Tessa Hicks-Peterson and her team. Located in Ontario, CASA connects students to the communities surrounding The Claremont Colleges. 

When I got involved with CASA, I was given a chance to grow and explore some troubling areas of legal and social injustice that interested me. I was lucky enough to work with a Riverside nonprofit called Starting Over Inc. (SOI) in their policy department. SOI was founded as an organization focused on reentry services but has expanded into many areas of communal support. 

The project I worked on involved the relationship between the county coroner’s office and the sheriff’s department in Riverside County.

The office and the department are combined, and that’s a problem. Many critics have said this relationship erodes public trust, especially involving in-custody deaths. That conflict of interest affects the coroner’s office’s ability to give impartial reporting on instances of police brutality. That often means that the families of those who have died in custody are forced to hire a third-party coroner to verify the results, or, in some cases, show them what really happened to their family member. It also results in millions of dollars in lawsuits that hurt the system. 

I wasn’t the first person ever to be interested in this, but—encouraged by Prof. Hicks Peterson and helped by many others, including Isabelle Thacker, our president’s spouse and a legal expert—I pursued my research in this area and published my findings with SOI.

“That program (CASA Pitzer) gave me more than just a special experience helping people. It’s made me come to see my career, and my family, in a wholly unexpected light.”

— Alex Wise ’24

Exploring the legal system suddenly gave me a new topic of conversation with my parents, who were both public defenders in Washington, D.C. I think they were surprised—and happy—when I’d call them up and say something like, “I just can’t believe the lack of transparency between the medical officer and the law enforcement agency, can you?!”

It was definitely not what they were expecting. 

This new way of relating to each other became even more noticeable as I worked on my senior thesis. I wanted to examine another area of social injustice: how the rate of plea bargaining has surged to 97% and that an outdated set of Supreme Court cases say that any defendants who take a plea bargain aren’t entitled to evidence that could prove their innocence. It isn’t fair, and I wanted to dig deeper into that legal inequity. I worked with some terrific faculty on this, but there wasn’t anyone who had the familiarity in this specific area of the law that I really needed … except for my dad. 

My dad knows a lot about this situation, and it was amazing to pick his brain about this subject as I worked on my thesis. It led to some unexpected conversations and seeing each other in a whole new way. 

I’m grateful for that. And all of it started because I wanted to work with CASA Pitzer. That program gave me more than just a special experience helping people. It’s made me come to see my career, and my family, in a wholly unexpected light. 

It’s also led me to be open to considering law school. This past summer, in fact, I had the chance to spend three months as an investigator for the Public Defender Service in D.C. It wasn’t just an amazing experience, it gave me another unexpected family connection, too. 

What was that? 

My position happened to be the same one my dad held 30 years ago.

Alex Wise ’24 is currently serving in the AmeriCorps City program in New Orleans.