Research

Select Works In Progress

“In the Spirit of the Law: The NAACP, EEOC, and Early Race-based Title VII Claims” has been accepted by the National Review of Black Politics (the journal of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists). Relying upon archival data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), this article demonstrates that individual claims of discrimination can be strategically used to advance specific interpretations of laws and create social change. In the formative years of the EEOC, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) collected individual claims to pressure the EEOC and Congress to establish affirmative action and other policies designed to advance progressive interpretations of Title VII. As such, claim based campaigns may be used by interest groups to advance their agendas outside of the judicial system. At the same time, the assistance of the NAACP also reduced the number of claims that were delayed or denied, demonstrating that this type of advocacy also has the potential to help claimants receive remedies to rights violations outside of the courts.

Another forthcoming article in the Journal of Policy History, titled “Borrowed Agency: The Institutional Capacity of the Early Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,” analyzes the early institutional resources of the EEOC, including agency budgets, staffing, and forms of borrowed capacity to explore how everyday encounters and coalitions can result in long term institutional gains for an agency. In this article, I build upon recent scholarship on borrowed capacity and coalition building to demonstrate how interactions between interest groups, individuals, and government agencies can result in beneficial relationships to reduce policy burdens and increase agency efficiency and scope.

As the potential for agencies to create social change relies upon the ability of Congress to delegate authority to the administrative state, I am also working on a journal article manuscript “The Roberts Court’s Path to a New Nondelegation Doctrine” which takes a doctrinal approach to understanding how the Roberts Court will likely limit legislative delegations to agencies and the implications of this for executive branch interpretations of law.

I am also working on a book manuscript, “Agency of Change: How Agency (In)actions Shape our Laws and Society.” By exploring early employment discrimination claims submitted to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Title VII, I compare multiple policy targets (those discriminated against on the basis of race, color, and sex), allowing me to gain insight into how the same law is applied to different groups. I am also analyzing comparatively the roles of interest groups such as the NAACP and National Organization for Women (NOW) in helping individuals claim and advance their rights. Theoretically, my book builds upon George Lovell’s This is Not Civil Rights (2012) and Michael McCann’s Rights at Work (1994) in proposing a new theoretical foundation for how society is shaped through legal interactions outside of the courts. I expect students and future scholars will look to this book as an example of how unorganized individuals, interest groups, and government agencies are all potential change makers through their visions of law.