HOUSTON,TX - In the latest session of the Justice40: A Time for Righteous Investment initiative, community members known as Justice40 Hub Leaders are set to learn how to use multiple screening tools including the highly anticipated HBCU Climate and Environmental Justice Screening Tool (HCEJST).

The HCEJST was developed to supplement the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) that excluded race as an indicator—despite race being the most potent predictor of environmental and climate vulnerability and despite feedback from Drs. Bullard, Wright and other members of the WHEJAC. Community leaders will be taught to use several tools to properly understand environmental and climate justice data in their communities and assess the efficacy of screening tools to accurately identify “disadvantaged” community designation for Justice40 funding.

“It’s important that our most environmentally impacted, economically disadvantaged, and vulnerable communities receive the benefits under Justice40. We must strive to have screening tools that are able to account for communities that are disadvantaged not by poverty or income, but by structural and systemic racism—past and present. Our communities need tools that account for the fact that America is segregated, and so is pollution. In the real world, middle-income Black communities experience more pollution than poor White communities,” says Bullard, who is often called the “father of environmental justice.”

The Bullard Center convened a team of data and GIS experts from HBCUs to develop the Justice40 HBCU Climate and Environmental Justice Screening Tool (HCEJST) to supplement the government screening tool that includes race. The experts are part of the Bullard Center, Deep South Center and HBCU Consortium Technical Support Team (TST). This team will be conducting training on the government CEJST and the HCEJST with 21 Justice40 hub leaders from 10 states. The hub leaders will also receive additional training on the EPA’s EJScreen mapping tool and the CDC’s Environmental Justice Index, a tool that ranks the cumulative impacts of environmental injustice on health for every census tract. The Technical Support Team is led by Dr. David Padgett Tennessee State University, with support of Dr. Reginald Archer also of Tennessee State University, Ms. Pamela Bingham (consultant), Dr. Linda Loubert, Mr. Malik Warren, and Ms. Cari Harris all of Morgan State University, Dr. Paul Robinson, Charles Drew School of Medicine and Science and Dr. Tony Graham, North Carolina A&T University (retired).

“The Technical Support Team’s primary goal is to empower EJ stakeholders’ research efforts via the HCEJST, ArcGIS Online, the Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (EJ SCREEN), Enviromapper, and others. The TST is providing technical assistance for environmental justice communities on-the-ground in the form of in- person, hybrid, and virtual workshops,” says Dr. David Padgett. The experts recently completed a test presentation of the HCEJST with a small group of Houston CBO Hub Leaders. The group was able to provide feedback on the tool’s operation process.

“For more than 30 years of working for and with Environmental Justice communities, DSCEJ has always uplifted community-driven solutions. We have seen, firsthand, our community members become engaged and empowered as they work alongside university experts and others to understand the data that applies to their communities. We have seen how this empowers people to speak up for themselves and demand environmental justice. I, along with several WHEJAC colleagues, strongly advised that race not be left off of the Federal measurement tool, because, clearly, race is still one of the most telling data points. This country cannot address environmental justice without considering race. Time and time again, data has clearly shown that African-Americans disproportionately live in communities with higher pollutants than other races of people. When the Federal tool was released without the inclusion of race, we knew we’d have to develop a tool to account for racial disparities. And so, we did." - Dr. Beverly Wright, Founder & Executive Director, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.

Media will be invited for interviews and a press conference in the coming days.

About the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice
The Robert D. Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University was launched in 2021 to address long standing issues of systemic inequality and structural racism that cause disproportionate pain, suffering and death in Black and other people of color communities. The Bullard Center works to promote environmental, climate, economic, energy, transportation, food and water and health justice. Texas Southern University is a student-centered comprehensive doctoral university committed to ensuring equality, offering innovative programs that are responsive to its urban setting, and transforming diverse students into lifelong learners, engaged citizens, and creative leaders in their local, national, and global communities.

About the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
Families in the Gulf Coast deserve to live in communities that are free from deadly air and are more resilient to climate change and extreme weather. The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ) works to empower and engage communities to put environmental justice and equity at the center of all climate action. Led by environmental justice scholar and advocate, author, civic leader and professor of Sociology Dr. Beverly L. Wright, DSCEJ uses research, education, and community and student engagement to advocate for policy change, lead health and safety training for environmental careers, develop social and emotional community wellness programs, and create new and environmentally healthy opportunities for the residents of communities disproportionately impacted by historic environmental injustice.