What I’m Doing This Summer: Oluwaninyo Anthony Aderibigde ’25

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What are you doing this summer?

Doing an internship with the Racial Justice Clinic in the School of Law. We’re working to implement and enforce the California Racial Justice Act of 2020. That law allows people charged with or convicted of a crime to challenge racial bias in their cases. We review letters from incarcerated people. They tell their stories, and we work with Professor Gabby Sergi to identify if their complaints meet any of the criteria to make a legal claim under the Racial Justice Act.

What’s your favorite thing about your internship?

Reading the letters from incarcerated people and then doing research about cases and court proceedings. We do research to learn the ways that defendants have been discriminated against in the past, based on their race, ethnicity, or national origin. A prosecutor in a trial says that people of a certain race are more likely to commit crimes, or police officers exchange text messages about the race of people they’ve arrested. By doing the research, we can look for precedents and help build a case in defense of an incarcerated person.

How did you learn about this internship?

I found it in the USF course catalog.

What’s your major?

Politics. With two minors, in computer science and legal studies.

Why USF?

It’s a Jesuit school. To me, a Jesuit education is about faith and about being kind and being just. Also, different people told me I’d be successful here, and my educational counselor told me that USF actually cares about helping students to be successful.

Your plans?

By God’s grace, I’ll go to law school. In constitutional law or international law.

Advice to other students?

Rely on your support system: CASA [Center for Academic and Student Achievement], the Learning Center, tutors. And take time to enjoy the campus. It's a beautiful campus. And please do good and share love.