Environmental and Climate Justice: History, Science, and Policy

Environmental justice (EJ) has emerged as a critical framework for addressing the disproportionate environmental burdens placed on marginalized communities, from hazardous waste siting to climate change impacts. This course provides a rigorous, interdisciplinary exploration of EJ through historical, scientific, and policy-based lenses. Students examine the evolution of the EJ movement, the science behind environmental disparities, and the policies shaping modern EJ governance at the local, national, and global levels. Case studies, legal frameworks, and environmental data analysis examples guide discussions on how power structures, policy decisions, and scientific methodologies contribute to environmental injustice—and how effective advocacy and policy reform can address these disparities as future solutions and development are implemented across urban and rural landscapes. Key themes of the course include the historical development of environmental justice, from early resistance movements to modern global advocacy; scientific methodologies for assessing environmental disparities, including geospatial mapping, epidemiology, and community-based participatory research; US environmental law and civil rights litigation as tools for EJ reform; climate justice and indigenous land sovereignty, particularly in the context of federal and international policy; and federal decision-making and environmental justice policy, with insights from direct experience at the White House and across multiple federal agencies.