The institutional context of civil rights: Mobilizing the Family and Medical Leave Act in the courts and in the workplace

Legal reforms can create rights, but what rights mean in practice depends upon individuals claiming or “mobilizing” those rights. My research challenges rational models of rights mobilization by showing that the process of rights mobilization is embedded within social institutions that construct individual preferences and undermine the effectiveness of rights.; In this study, I focus on rights claims under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and examine how formal procedural rules and informal social institutions affect rights mobilization. Using empirical data from the courts and the workplace, I demonstrate that the institutional context of civil rights constrains doctrinal development, creates obstacles to exercising rights, and shapes what rights mean in practice.; This dissertation draws on three sources of data: doctrine developed in judicial opinions interpreting rights, empirical data coded from federal court decisions in FMLA actions, and qualitative interviews with workers who negotiated their FMLA rights in the workplace. First, through doctrinal analysis of the FMLA and related civil rights laws, I show how informal but institutionalized conceptions of work, gender and disability permeate judicial interpretations of rights and transform their meaning. Second, using empirical data coded from federal court opinions, I show that courts' formal procedural rules do not provide a neutral framework for dispute resolution, but instead create a selection bias in rulemaking that constrains the interpretation and enforcement of civil rights. Third, through interviews with workers who negotiated FMLA rights in the workplace, I show that rather than bringing stable, preexisting preferences about their rights to leave disputes, workers construct their preferences through ongoing social interactions with others. I also find that despite formal legal reforms, institutionalized expectations about work, gender and disability continue to permeate workplace negotiations over leave rights, creating obstacles to rights mobilization, and shaping workers' perceptions of fairness and the law. Finally, I demonstrate that although social institutions create resistance to rights and can undermine rights mobilization, rights themselves operate as social institutions and create opportunities for challenging established practices, building connections among workers, and bringing about social change.