The Future of Environmental Justice Claims under Title VI: Can the "Sleeping Giant" Finally Be Awakened?*

Abstract

For more than three decades, environmental justice advocates have sought to employ Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in their efforts to address disproportionate pollution burdens in historically marginalized communities.  The promise of Title VI is that federal agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can compel recipients of federal funding to alter state and local policies that disparately impact these communities.  Those advocacy efforts have gone largely unrewarded in both Democratic and Republican administrations.  The Biden Administration, however, promised to do better and has moved in a generally positive direction.  But state and local recipients are now fighting back through the courts, likely in the hopes that the current Supreme Court will ultimately take up the legality of federal "disparate impact" regulations and invalidate them.  While that outcome seems increasingly possible after Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College, this article suggests that Title VI complaints can still play an important role in combatting environmental injustices if practitioners use them as a platform for adjacent activities like public demonstrations, press campaigns, legislative strategies, and the like.  Such a multipronged campaign can raise the visibility of community suffering -- and thus the pressure on elected officials and policymakers -- even if the Title VI process itself does not remedy the situation.

Keywords: Title VI, Environmental Justice