Lila Schwab is a senior completing a double major in Sociology and Government.
She did research last summer with the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law, which recently culminated in a Fellowship Publication with ECNL:
The paper compares how migrants and solidarity activists use disruptive protest tactics, offline and online, to force visibility, and how states respond by stretching public-order and immigration laws to criminalize those actions despite formal free-assembly guarantees.
I had the opportunity to interview Lila, and learn more about her motivations behind the project, what she found most interesting, and how she sees her time at Cornell and this research experience fitting into her future ambitions.
What first drew you to study sociology at Cornell?
Before coming to Cornell, I didn’t really know what I wanted to study, but I knew I was drawn to people: to working with them, learning about different lived experiences, and understanding why those experiences differ so widely, thinking about these things in interaction with larger social systems. I have always been interested in law, and I felt like I needed a deeper grounding alongside it, a way to understand how people actually interact with institutions like the law, and how those institutions shape group and individual experiences in return. Sociology felt like that bridge.
Once I got to Cornell, my interest in sociology only deepened. Both through the coursework and the community, I realized that sociology is kind of a foundational lens for thinking about law, policy, and social change. It gives you the tools to understand what social systems are and how they work, but also how they’re experienced and contested on the ground.
Was there a particular class, professor, or experience that sparked your interest in research?
My sociology advisor, Professor York Cornwell, was an important influence. Taking her class on classical sociological theory encouraged me to think about theory in really contemporary, applied ways, not just abstractly, but as something you can use to interpret real social phenomena, especially in specific or underexplored areas, like the intersection of migration, protest, online activism, and freedom of assembly laws across regions in my paper.
I have also been involved in research at Cornell, both over the summer within the Sociology Department with Professor Maralani and during the school year within my second major department (government) at the Gender and Security Sector Lab. These experiences made me appreciate working with data and the process of data collection, along with the rigor, attention to detail, and communication skills it requires. But at the same time, they made me realize I wanted to go beyond just collecting data. I wanted to engage with interpretation, with the human stories and legal complexities behind the data, and to contribute to analysis, findings, and recommendations.
How did you first become involved with the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL)?
I was already somewhat familiar with ECNL through following European civil society work, partly because I’m half French. At a certain point, I knew I wanted to get involved, especially as we are witnessing the shrinking of civic space everywhere, including here on campus, affecting groups differently. It felt frustrating to stay in classroom theory while seeing those dynamics play out in real time, particularly for groups already marginalized by the state, like migrants, a group whose experiences I already focus on academically.
So I reached out to ECNL directly to ask about fellowship opportunities. It felt like a way to engage more concretely with the issues I cared about and to work at the intersection of research and real-world impact.
Are there particular case studies or countries that shaped your analysis? What kinds of protest tactics are you examining, both online and offline?
The paper focuses on four countries, France, Greece, Germany, and the United States, because each has seen sustained migration-related contestation alongside different legal and political approaches to protest.
Across these contexts, I look at a range of protest tactics that emerge when more conventional avenues are unavailable. Offline, this includes encampments, hunger strikes, occupations, marches, and collective resistance to deportation. These are often deliberately disruptive but non-violent actions aimed at forcing visibility and recognition, and many of them fall within what we would traditionally understand as civil disobedience: public, collective breaches of law intended to challenge policies perceived as unjust.
Online, the tactics range from documentation and coordination, like real-time alerts and transnational organizing, to more explicitly disruptive forms of digital civil disobedience. One example I analyze is a “virtual sit-in,” where activists flooded a border surveillance platform with submissions, turning a monitoring system into a site of protest. What’s interesting here is that these actions mirror core features of civil disobedience but unfold through digital infrastructures rather than physical space.
What I thought was important to consider, too, is that these aren’t separate spheres. Offline and online tactics are deeply intertwined, especially for migrants whose physical mobility and legal standing are constrained. In that sense, digital space becomes an extension of protest repertoires, and sometimes a substitute when physical presence is too risky.
How do public-order or immigration laws become tools to criminalize activism?
Across all four countries, there are strong formal protections for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. But those protections operate alongside broad public-order and immigration enforcement powers, and it’s in that overlap that criminalization happens.
Public-order laws, like restrictions on unauthorized assemblies, trespass, or “breach of the peace” laws, are often used to regulate disruptive protest. That includes many forms of civil disobedience, which are by definition intentionally non-compliant with certain legal rules. On their own, these laws are framed as neutral tools for maintaining order. But when they intersect with immigration law, the stakes shift significantly. A charge that might result in a fine or citation for a citizen can carry consequences like detention, loss of legal status, or deportation for a migrant.
What emerges is more of an enforcement ecosystem. Authorities can move between criminal law, administrative regulations, immigration controls, and increasingly digital governance tools. That layering creates a high degree of discretion, which allows for selective enforcement. In practice, this means migrant protesters, and often the networks supporting them, are more exposed to surveillance, investigation, and sanction, including for acts of civil disobedience that would otherwise fall within protected forms of assembly.
This dynamic becomes even more complex online, where disruptive actions can be framed through cybercrime or platform rules rather than protest law, shifting how civil disobedience is interpreted altogether.
What kind of sources or methods are you using for this research?
The project is grounded in a qualitative socio-legal approach that combines doctrinal legal analysis with comparative case study work.
I start by analyzing international, regional, and domestic legal frameworks governing protest, focusing on how principles like legality, legitimacy, and proportionality are interpreted and applied. A key part of that is understanding how civil disobedience is treated within human rights law, especially how its criteria and associated protections translate into digital contexts, given that it is traditionally grounded in physical forms of protest.
I then apply that framework to a set of case studies across my countries. For those, I draw on a mix of judicial decisions, legislative texts, government documents, investigative journalism, academic literature, and civil society reports. The goal is to trace how legal standards are actually used, or sidestepped, in concrete protest situations, including in cases involving both physical and digital civil disobedience.
I also spoke with practitioners and experts working directly in these areas, including migration specialists at EU institutions, civil society organizations, and even faculty here at Cornell Law. That added an important layer, as their perspectives helped me work through complexities, add nuance to my initial ideas, and strengthen each iteration of the project.
What has been the most surprising or challenging finding so far?
In some ways, the core findings aren't that surprising. The idea that strong rights protections coexist with discretionary enforcement that disproportionately impacts marginalized groups is well-established, and this project largely confirms that pattern in the context of migrant protest.
What was more unexpected was how this plays out in the digital space, and how differently those actions are categorized. In several cases, forms of digital civil disobedience that are clearly communicative and collective in intent end up being framed through entirely different legal lenses rather than as protest. That shift is often facilitated through third-party actors, especially private platforms, where moderation decisions, data-sharing, or informal state pressure operate outside traditional constitutional constraints. As a result, the analysis moves away from freedom of assembly altogether, which changes what protections are even considered.
I also found it striking how early intervention can happen in digital contexts. Surveillance and data-sharing can trigger responses before an action fully unfolds, which complicates the traditional idea of civil disobedience as a visible, public act that responds to punishment after the fact.
Has anything about the research changed how you think about protest or digital activism?
It reinforced for me how much of a double-edged sword digital activism is. It creates access, especially for people who can’t safely protest in physical spaces, but it also expands the reach of surveillance and control. Protest is increasingly moving online, which means that its risks are being redistributed in new ways.
What skills have you developed through this project that you didn’t expect?
I would say the skill I worked on the most, beyond learning how to decipher international human rights legal texts, is confidence in working with experts outside the university. At first, it was intimidating to speak with people who are actively shaping the systems I’m studying and know much more than I do about the themes of my research.
But I quickly learnt to approach those conversations differently, to accept that I don’t know everything, and to treat them as genuine opportunities to learn. I started to see my role less as someone trying to prove expertise and more as someone who gets to absorb knowledge and then share it through my work. That shift made the whole process much more meaningful.
What advice would you give other undergraduates who want to get involved in research?
Start with something you actually care about and enjoy working on (you’ll be spending a lot of time on it!), and then try to approach it from a more challenging or unfamiliar angle. And apply or reach out, no matter how unlikely you think the collaboration will be, you have nothing to lose! There are so many opportunities at Cornell (during the summer too) and beyond, but they often require that first step of putting yourself out there.
When you’re not doing research, how do you like to spend your time at Cornell?
It changes by the semester! Recently, I’ve been getting into sculpture through the intro class I’m taking here, which has been a nice shift from more analytical work. And I’ve been trying to make the most of my last months here, spending time with my friends, enjoying the sunny days we get, and trying new restaurants, even in my last semester.
What career paths are you considering after graduation?
Before pursuing a master’s, I’d like to work for a bit in Europe, ideally in migration policy or in international criminal or human rights law. I’m particularly interested in roles that sit at the intersection of research, policy, and practice, where I can stay connected to the kinds of questions I’ve been working on while also engaging with how they play out in real-world contexts. I’m still exploring what that might look like in practice, but I know I want to remain in spaces that are both analytically rigorous and directly engaged with ongoing social and legal issues.
