MADISON AGO / CONTRIBUTOR

From this past December and January’s “Jeopardy!” sequence, you might recognize associate professor of Political Science and International Relations, director of the graduate program of International Relations and associate professor of USD Law School, Dr. Andrew Tirrell. Also known by his friends as Andy, Tirrell is a man of many titles. He’s represented numerous individuals in civil and human rights cases, married a fellow USD professor Dr. Sara Hasselbach and — most recently — received recognition as a three-time “Jeopardy!” winner.

Tirrell’s passion for civil rights began with the observations he made going to middle school and high school in northern rural Florida. Originally from Boston, Tirrell and his single mother moved to a low-income area of Florida where his mother worked as a public school teacher to get her student loans forgiven.

There, he noticed the obvious segregation between white and Black communities.

“There were almost no Black students in the honors classes and Advanced Placement (AP) classes,” Tirrell said. “Thinking back, that made me interested in education law and race, because I saw a high school that never thought to identify Black students to try an honors or AP class I always had that in the back of my mind, and I knew that my high school was shaping lives and feeding into the persistent segregation in my town.”

Tirrell’s recognition of these inequalities in the education system came full circle, when he took a 75% pay cut from his corporate law job to work for a civil rights organization. The clients he represented were students from marginalized communities with various learning disabilities, often resulting in discrimination from the public school system. Tirrell cited that these students were not receiving the support they needed and graduating at much lower rates compared to their wealthier and whiter counterparts, who generally have greater access to academic services.

One case that stuck out to Tirrell was about a 14-year- old boy who was stuck at a second-grade reading level for years. As a low-income child immigrant from Brazil, Tirrell’s client was assumed to be a low- performing and illiterate student.

“The truth came out that he actually had an IQ of around 140, and he was just dyslexic. Had he been in a wealthier school or neighborhood, or been white and had English as his native language, it would have been quickly identified,” Tirrell asserted.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is a federal law which holds schools responsible for identifying educational disabilities and providing reasonable services that would help the student overcome those challenges. Under this legislation, Tirrell was able to acquire support for this student to get him up to grade level, so he could graduate from high school.

Now, over 15 years later, Tirrell still wonders where this former client may have ended up.

“Unfortunately, I lost touch with him after that. I’ve been actually trying to find him, I keep reaching out to people with his name and finding it’s not him. I don’t know what happened after that, but I do know that even after he started getting help with reading and was able to do well with school, he never thought of himself as someone who was smart, which is incredibly sad,” Tirrell expressed.

Tirrell’s own experiences with attention deficit disorder (ADD) allowed him to personally identify with his clients, but it also helped him understand what he calls the “neurotype” that served him in his recent “Jeopardy!” streak. Having been undiagnosed in middle school, young Tirrell was a regional champion and state competitor in the Florida Geography Bee, despite having a D in Social Studies at the time.

“‘Jeopardy!’ caters to a particular neurotype. It’s not about being smart, because there are lots of ways to be smart… It’s about having a really sticky brain, where you see something and hear it and you’re not even trying… People are just built differently and ‘Jeopardy!’ rewards those kinds of things,” Tirrell discussed.

In addition to the monetary reward, champion status and local media attention, Tirrell recalls the best part of appearing on the renowned trivia game-show “Jeopardy!” as the community of like-minded friends he made, while competing against the other contestants.

“It’s like nerd summer camp. You’re at a hotel together for a week, you’re hanging out at the studio waiting to go on. You joke around and get to know each other very well… We still chat every day; we have a Discord that’s been constantly going about a hundred messages a day,” Tirrell explained.

Tirrell was even shouted out by “Jeopardy!” contestant Ike Barinholtz, actor and comedian of the TV series “The Mindy Project,” in an interview by Vulture.

Along with the “Jeopardy!” family Tirrell made on the show, he has his own family here at USD.

English majors or visitors to the USD Writing Center may be familiar with Dr. Sara Hasselbach, but may not know that she is married and has a five-year-old son with Dr. Tirrell. Before both becoming USD professors in 2015, the two met in New York, where they pursued their higher academic degrees at Tufts

“She reached out to me and she didn’t even introduce herself or anything. She just challenged me to a word game. She asked me to come up with a word that includes every vowel,” Tirrell reminisced, fondly. “Audiometry” was the word that originated these two young students’ would- be future marriage and family.

Before meeting Hasselbach, Tirrell had recently quit his high-paying clerk job at a corporate law firm in New York.

“For a lot of people in the New York dating market, if you said you were at a law firm, and now getting a new job and taking a 75% pay cut to work at a civil rights organization, [they] would not be as interested. But [Hasselbach] was 100% ‘I think you should do that.’ We were very poor,” Tirrell laughed.

Andy Tirrell discovered himself in many unique corners of the professional and academic sector, the U.S. and the world. Through his education and experiences, he hopes to continue to instill inspiration into his students and those around him.

“I’m reflecting on what I’ve learned from all this, and I think the thing I’ve learned the most is how important it is to find your place… It’s okay to just explore. Life is a process of trial and error — and I don’t like the word error — of trial, to figure out what works for you, what makes you happy,” Tirrell stated.

Tirrell returning to ‘Jeopardy!’ for their ‘Champions Wildcard Tournament’ in January with host Ken Jennings.
Photo courtesy of @usdcas/Instagram