Lucien Ferguson has joined the faculty at Chicago-Kent College of Law as an assistant professor, following the completion of his Ph.D. in political science at Northwestern University. Ferguson’s academic work centers on the intersection of law and social mobility in the United States.
Ferguson’s dissertation, titled “The Spirit of Caste: Recasting the History of Civil Rights,” received the 2024 Edward S. Corwin Award from the American Political Science Association for Best Doctoral Dissertation in Public Law. His research examines how legal systems impact opportunities for social advancement.
“There’s all of this research—sociological, economic, political—showing that social mobility is crucial for a strong, stable democracy,” Ferguson said. He explained that his interest lies in understanding how laws affect marginalized groups’ ability to move up economically. “I’m really interested in what role the law plays in allowing poor or other marginalized people to achieve or ascend the socioeconomic ladder,” he said. “I want to help people understand that social mobility, this familiar ideal that we associate with the American dream, is also a constitutional ideal.”
Ferguson’s current scholarship focuses on how courts interpret and enforce the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and its implications for economic opportunity. “Everyone is entitled to an equal opportunity for economic uplift,” he said. “‘Equal protection’ is interpreted as meaning that states should be neutral. But if we take the value of social mobility seriously, what ‘equal protection’ should require is that states actually intervene in areas of low social mobility to try to level the playing field.”
He noted that since the 1970s, economic inequality has increased in America. “The rungs separating the ladder have grown farther apart,” Ferguson said. “That means that more effort is needed for any individual to move from one area in the division of labor to the next.” He added that these changes have led to significant societal challenges: “I think you see the effects of that in growing problems of homelessness, you see it in debates over education, where it has become increasingly common to insist that we’re in a zero-sum society and that everyone is in competition with each other—and that is one of the effects of having a really stratified economy,” he said. “I also see deep resentment and distrust. ‘The system is not working so that I can get what I deserve, which is my chance at the American dream.’ I think that is deeply felt right now and is having bad effects on the legal system.”
Ferguson’s interest in these issues began during his time as a special education teacher with Chicago Public Schools, where he worked on individualized Education Programs (IEPs) mandated by federal law for students with disabilities. “That ended up being a really impactful experience for me because it helped me see how federal disability laws and state and local regulations really impact day-to-day lived experiences in the classroom,” he said.
His experience also included involvement with labor organizing through membership in the Chicago Teachers Union. “There was a lot of organizing energy and a lot of effort being made to organize teachers at schools, because it was this really crucial moment where the structure of school governance and organization was changing,” Ferguson said.
After teaching, Ferguson completed both J.D. and Ph.D. degrees at Northwestern University by 2023 and served as Drinan Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston College Law School before joining Chicago-Kent.
“I’m really excited about joining Chicago-Kent,” Ferguson said. “The faculty is extremely impressive and I just think it’s so amazing to be able to join the law school community.”