My current research examines race, labor, social movements, and law in both the historical and contemporary contexts. In a recent article, Contesting Racial Wages (Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy Vol. 30, Issue III, Spring 2023), I used archival research to recover the contestation between southern industrialists mobilized; John P. Davis and his organizations; and the National Recovery Administration (NRA) in relation to the contest over racial wage differentials and exclusion in the codes of fair competition. The article presents previously unexplored archival evidence of the NRA’s purposeful discrimination to corroborate Davis’ original claims and highlight the role of the New Deal in deepening segregation. It shows that even as Davis was a leading critic of the NRA, he championed and the New Deal’s promise and the constitutional necessity of federal intervention to address the threat to democracy posed by oligarchy and racial inequality. The article presents Davis’ alternative vision of New Deal reform as well as its significance today.
My more contemporary-focused research explores the lasting impacts of the impacts of the racist origins of our labor and employment laws today, examining the ways in which Uber, Lyft, and other platform corporations have used misclassification and the tiered system of worker protections to secure access to cheap and exploitable BIPOC and immigrant labor. I buttress this work with multiyear ethnographic research in South Florida to examine the impacts of these maneuvers on BIPOC and immigrant drivers, as well as the mobilization and advocacy models these workers incorporate to fight back against platform corporations.