Turning data into action. Dive into our latest research reports, field studies, and publications detailing the ongoing fight against systemic disparities and climate racism in frontline communities.
This report, co-published with Institute for Policy Integrity at New York City University School of Law contextualizes and charts the second Trump Administration’s efforts to eliminate federal environmental justice initiatives. The administration’s actions, which conflict with more than 30 years of federal practice, are having dire consequences. By showing that demands for environmental justice have persisted for decades, and will persist outside the federal government, this report illustrates that this Administration by no means marks the end of environmental justice, as either a movement or a governing agenda.
Since re-assuming office, President Trump and his administration have rescinded executive orders requiring consideration of environmental inequities, terminated the jobs of agency staff responsible for carrying out those orders, and revoked rules protecting public health in vulnerable communities. In the process, the Trump Administration has broken from three decades of bipartisan (if fluctuating) support for redressing environmental inequities.
But the administration has used weak legal arguments to justify these rollbacks. This report, co-published with the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York City University School of Law, examines these arguments. Most notably, the Supreme Court’s Supreme Court’s recent decisions about affirmative action do not render environmental justice initiatives categorically unlawful, although they do impose meaningful constraints. Just as importantly, nothing in the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College prevents the government from considering the historical legacies of racism, even if that decision generally restricts them from considering present-day racial demographics.
