Professor Jennifer Gordon, who holds the John D. Feerick Chair at Fordham Law School, has been a leading voice in immigration and labor for over three decades. Her groundbreaking work on workers’ rights and migration is influential among advocates, in academia and with policymakers. Gordon has presented her findings to government agencies in the U.S. and abroad as well as global organizations.
Before joining Fordham Law in 2003, Gordon was the J. Skelly Wright Fellow and visiting faculty lecturer at Yale Law School, and the founding executive director of The Workplace Project, a nonprofit that fights for fair treatment of immigrant workers in New York. Gordon was also previously selected as a MacArthur Prize Fellow and Open Society Foundations Fellow, and she was named “Outstanding Woman Lawyer“ by the National Law Journal.
In this Q&A, Gordon discusses her recent work on forced labor in global supply chains, the rights of low-wage workers, and the question of how to advance the collective efforts of people seeking fair working conditions.
What legal subject are you currently working on?
My most recent work is about forced labor in global supply chains. It’s part of a larger project of mine looking at approaches to supporting workers in other countries who make our phones, clothes, and food as they seek to address the violations of fundamental labor rights that are so common in supply chains.
The project I’m working on now examines a mechanism in U.S. trade law—the forced labor import ban—and asks whether it offers a resource to such workers. If so, how should they approach it? We often think about people experiencing forced labor as victims without agency. But around the world and throughout history there have always been times when workers have found ways to fight back, even under terrible conditions.
Next up for me is a piece on forced labor and freedom of association, looking at a series of recent cases where workers experiencing forced labor and other serious abuses have organized to combat them. I reflect on how those situations challenge us to think differently about laws related to human trafficking and forced labor: not as a way to “rescue” helpless people but as a tool to advance their collective efforts to build lives with dignity.
How does the subject matter you are working on impact people and/or the legal community?
My work generally focuses on the rights of low-wage workers, including immigrants and others, both in the U.S. and in other countries. My interest in the area comes out of my experience right after law school as the founder and director of the Workplace Project, a nonprofit immigrant workers’ organizing center.
A number of my projects involve collaborations with community and advocacy organizations, whether I’m doing interviews for a qualitative study or we’re working together to build and test new theories for change in the field.
When I start a new research and writing project, my goal is always twofold: both to advance the work on the ground and to build out a more theoretical understanding of how law interacts with struggles for change in particular contexts.
Will you be presenting this scholarship in an article, book, or talk?
A new article of mine, “The US Forced Labor Import Ban—A Tool to Raise Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains?” will be coming out in the UC Law Journal in May 2025. This project has generated interest in many different quarters. In addition to academic talks, over the past year I’ve been invited to brief the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.K. government, and the International Labor Organization of the United Nations on my findings, and also to speak about them to unions and civil society organizations from around the world.
How does your scholarship in this area relate to your teaching?
Very directly! In addition to Legislation and Regulation, I teach Immigration Law and a seminar on low-wage workers rights (Workers, the Law, and the Changing Economy). In those classes we explore how law intersects with the daily lives of immigrants and workers.
No matter what I’m teaching, it’s important to me that students in my classes gain a fundamental understanding of legal doctrine as written, and of the impact of the law as actually implemented. Students will go on to do many things in their careers, and I want them to leave my classroom with confidence in their knowledge and skills—and also a critical eye on the gaps between the reality on the ground, the law on the books, and larger visions of a just world.
