Rachel Swanteson-Franz, a second-year law student at The University of New Mexico School of Law, has been named a 2024 Peggy Browning Fellow. She will spend the upcoming summer working at the New Mexico Center for Law and Poverty.
The Peggy Browning Fund is an organization that supports law students in gaining experience in workplace justice advocacy. It provides fellows with stipends for ten weeks of employment with labor-related mentor organizations. This year, Swanteson-Franz was one of 117 law students selected from nearly 4,000 applicants across the country.
The Peggy Browning Fund released a statement praising this year's fellows: “Labor needs lawyers and we are inspired by the passion and dedication this year’s Fellows bring to the movement. These Fellows are distinguished students who have not only excelled in law school but who have also demonstrated their commitment to workers’ rights through their previous educational, organizing, work, volunteer, and personal experiences.”
Prior to attending law school, Swanteson-Franz spent four years working in environmental research and advocacy. Her experiences led her to see a deep connection between environmental justice and labor issues. She referenced the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident as an example of how improved labor protections could prevent such catastrophes.
“You see it locally with oil and gas workers or miners having a lot of direct health impacts from their working conditions and then the communities near the work sites have really negative impacts from poor air quality to water quality, which is also directly contributing to environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change,” she said. “If companies generally had to comply with much more rigorous worker safety standards, they couldn’t exploit the workers and thereby exploit the environment at the same time.”
Swanteson-Franz expressed her interest in ensuring labor rights are prioritized during the transition to renewable energy. She advocates for new jobs in this sector to be well-paid, treat employees well, and adhere to strong safety regulations.
In the future, Swanteson-Franz plans to pursue the Natural Resources and Environmental Law Certificate. She will also serve as the vice president of the Association of Public Interest Law at UNM next year.
