Environmental Justice Reading Group - Session 1
This event is not open to the public.
Join us for the first session of the brand-new Environmental Justice Reading Group, organized by the Environmental Law Society, on Friday, October 16 at 1:30pm. At this session we'll be discussing a selection of short readings intended to give us an overview of the world of the theory of environmental justice (EJ) and the major themes we hope to explore in further groups, including environmental racism, the intersection of environmental degradation and the covid crisis, EJ and mass incarceration, and EJ activism.
No prior knowledge of environmental law is necessary -- we encourage everyone with an interest to come! Our reading list for the first session is below; no one is expected to read everything, just read what interests you, or even just come for the discussion. To that end, we've recommended both shorter and longer readings and have included some short video options so that everyone can judge their own workload and get something out of the session without having to worry about a ton of extra reading.
The session will be held on Google Meets, at this link: https://meet.google.com/obc-nbyy-bxg.
Reading List:
(don't read everything unless you really want to -- this is a menu, not a prescription!)
- General Overview
- Read: Robert D. Bullard, Anatomy of Environmental Racism and the Environmental Justice Movement, in Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots (Bullard ed. 1993) (PDF, 25 pp)
- Watch: ProPublica, A Brief History of Environmental Justice (Aug. 4, 2017) (YouTube video, 4 min)
- EJ + Incarceration
- EJ + Covid
- Read: Lylla Younes, ProPublica & Sara Sneath, New Research Shows Disproportionate Rate of Coronavirus Deaths in Polluted Areas, ProPublica (Sept. 11, 2020) (article, c. 7 pp)
- Watch: Vox video on air pollution and covid mortality in Black communities (May 22, 2020) (video embedded in the article, 9 minutes)
- EJ + Activism
- Read: panel discussion with Majora Carter, Miranda Massie, David Palmer & Elizabeth Yeampierre, Whose Survival? Environmental Justice As A Civil Rights Issue, 13 N.Y. City L. Rev. 257 (2010) (Westlaw link, c. 20 pp)
- Read: U.S. Climate Action Network, Vision for Equitable Climate Action (May 2020) (PDF, 30 pp)
If you're interested in helping organize the next sessions and pick readings for the same, please email ELS Co-Chair William Rose at wcr241@nyu.edu.