Reaffirming environmental justice

I was recently asked to speak at First Parish Dorchester, a Unitarian Universalist congregation, about my experiences teaching environmental justice in 2025. Here are my remarks, given on April 27:

It’s been really unnerving for me teaching a course at Boston College this semester on urban environmental justice for first-year students, called “The Just City.” I taught the same course in 2022. At that time, environmental justice was a very hot topic. A lot of new research was coming out highlighting all the ways that redlining and environmental racism had shaped cities and created environmental inequalities. At the federal level, the government was in the process of making historic investments in environmental justice work and incorporating it into policy across the entire government. The students were learning about challenges that they could see acknowledged and addressed at many levels of power.   

As I began teaching it a second time, I began to realize how the world was changing around me. Websites on federal environmental justice programs that I had assigned my students to read disappeared. So did data. New executive orders came out essentially banning environmental justice work.

I worry about the chilling effect this has on my students, who will be even less inclined to pursue a career path that fights for something that is being defunded and attacked.

Because there is no longer any information about environmental justice policy on federal websites, I had my students instead read two executive orders, one from the previous administration and one written in January. The first one states: “Restoring and protecting a healthy environment—wherever people live, play, work, learn, grow, and worship—is a matter of justice and a fundamental duty that the Federal Government must uphold on behalf of all people.”

The second one calls on all government agencies to “terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and “environmental justice” offices and positions.” ‘Environmental justice’ has quotes around it. It is never defined or explained. It is lumped together with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, which have distinct objectives. There is no articulation of why environmental justice is being deemed illegal or discriminatory or what alternative approach is being offered.

In fact, reading through it, you get no sense of a goal except to literally remove the term ‘environmental justice’ from the government and the work it funds. And I’ve spoken to people working in environmental groups who plan to write their next federal grants with that term removed.

We’re in a time right now where terminology is almost fetishized. Think about how many political battles today are over words. Whether you’re on the right or the left, the argument seems to be that the other side is trying to dictate what words can be said or not.

If environmental justice continues to flourish, it must transcend being a buzzword. Buzzwords are brittle; values are not.

So while I am pretty despondent about the times we are in, I think they also offer an opportunity to reevaluate these terms that are under such attack, explore what they mean to us, and reaffirm our commitment to the values embodied within them.

What does environmental justice mean to us as a country, a city, a community of individuals?

I explain to my students that environmental justice is a historical movement with its roots in the United States that has spread around the world, and it’s also a framework or lens for understanding environmental problems and solutions. The movement arose in response to cases where lower-income or minority neighborhoods were being exposed unfairly to hazardous waste and pollution.

This led to the notion that Prof. Robert Bullard, often called the father of environmental justice, has described as “the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water and to have our food safe to eat and have our kids play on playgrounds that are not contaminated.” And it has expanded to include issues of fairness in participation in decision-making and more equitable access to environmental resources and amenities like green spaces and renewable energy. As the climate changes, it has also expanded to include climate justice, which strives to mend systems of environmental destruction and to recognize that the people most impacted by climate change are often those least responsible for contributing to it.

The environmental movement has often been concerned with protecting wilderness and nature. Environmental justice reframes the environment as places where people live, work, and play. It calls us to pay attention to the vastly unequal environments that different people experience, and to transform the systems that create those differences. It asks us to consider justice in our efforts to be sustainable and preserve nature.

But it’s easier to understand the processes of environmental injustice than to imagine and bring into being environmental justice. So many solutions, whether they are rooted in law and policy or in urban design or in social and community practices, seem incomplete. I tell my students to ignore the word “solution,” as it implies an end to the problem, and to think about “interventions” that will change the system in some way that puts it on a better path.

That path needs to bring us toward living within ecological limits, creating human societies that use fewer resources and create less pollution and waste, and creating more equitable urban environments where everyone can live without being exposed to hazards and pollution.

I teach that cities are complex systems where people and other species interact with each other and with built infrastructure and the larger natural environment. Interventions can make these relationships more or less equitable, sustainable, or resilient, but they often involve tradeoffs. Addressing environmental inequities may mean sacrificing some of the conveniences of urban living. For example, some people live in quiet treelined neighborhoods but drive cars that contribute pollution to neighborhoods adjacent to major roads and highways. We can make interventions like planting trees in those neighborhoods. But we also need to be working toward reducing society’s reliance on fossil fuels, which is creating the pollution to begin with. We need to consider justice towards people living today and toward generations in the future who will inherit these problems.

Along with the notion of a right to a healthy environment is the notion of responsibility. What are our responsibilities toward the larger environment and toward other people impacted by our lifestyles? What could we be doing to improve our local environment, address inequities, and advocate for a fairer and more sustainable world?

Earth Day is a great time to be reflecting on these questions. And to remember that the Earth is not just oceans, forests, parks, and trees, it is cities, streets, and homes.