Environment Health,Law&Justice

Catalog description

Several federal environmental laws (for example; the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) were passed by Congress in the late 1960s and during the 1970s to respond to sprawling environmental degradations, but they did not entirely surmount the challenges with environmental concerns. Several communities especially, low-income, African American communities and Native American communities faced and continue to face challenges with the environment due to distributive injustices where planning and zoning laws were applied to position undesirable facilities and land uses in such marginalized communities. Hence this advanced graduate-level course is designed to enable students to 1) review and understand past and current environmental laws, 2) analyze the historical and contemporary distribution of undesirable land uses and facilities through the lenses of distributive justice, 3) examine the impact (health, economic and social) of such planning, law, and zoning land uses on marginalized communities, and 4) analyze the emergence of the environmental justice movement and its mechanisms in seeking justice for marginalized communities as well as 5) contemporary local and global environmental justice concerns and the response of communities to such concerns. Offered: summer.