Environmental Justice Law & Advocacy
From climate change to food deserts to sustainable water management, Santa Clara Law provides students opportunities to gain the knowledge and skills needed to tackle the most pressing environmental issues of our time.
About the Project
The Environmental Justice Law & Advocacy Project is the home for all things related to environmental law. Here, you can find information on projects led by our faculty and students, learn about upcoming events and programs, and stay connected through our blog and newsletter.
Part of the Santa Clara University’s Environmental Justice and Common Good Initiative, the EJ Law & Advocacy Project supports the Initiative’s mission to foster community-driven research for social and environmental justice. Students engage in a variety of environmental issues through formal classroom learning, internships and experiential learning, working as an RA or conducting independent research, and even law student organizations. Through a combination of transactional law, policy advocacy, public education, and community-driven research, students collaborate with leading experts and community advocates to advance environmental justice in the Bay Area and beyond.
Guiding Principles
- The environment is everywhere that humans and other natural beings live, work, play, learn, or pray. A healthy environment is a human right and a right of nature.
- Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities routinely face the greatest environmental injustices. These injustices arise primarily from systemic inequities of wealth and power based on race, ethnicity, and class, as well as their intersections with gender, citizenship status, access to education, and other categories.
- Colleges, universities, and professional schools have the technical expertise, facilities, educational opportunities, financial resources, social capital and moral duty to support frontline communities and organizations to achieve their environmental justice goals.
Land Acknowledgement
We pause to acknowledge that Santa Clara University School of Law sits on the land of the Ohlone and Muwekma Ohlone people. We remember their continued connection to this region and give thanks to them for allowing us to live, work, learn, and pray on their traditional homeland. We offer our respect to their Elders and to all Ohlone people of the past and present.
Projects
CA Civil Rights Law §11135 Guide
Darling Inc. Animal Rendering Plant
Public Comments and Other Advocacy
BAAQMD comments re: cement manufacturers
