Vermont Law School announces the establishment of a new Environmental Justice (EJ) Clinic. The program is one of just a few law school clinics in the United States devoted to environmental justice, a practice at the intersection of civil rights and environmental law.
“The Environmental Justice Clinic offers students the opportunity to represent disenfranchised communities fighting racial and economic disparities in the distribution of pollution, while also fighting for a say in decisions affecting their future,” said the clinic’s director Marianne Engelman Lado, Visiting Professor and Douglas Costle Chair in Environmental Law.
Along with directing the EJ Clinic, Engelman Lado also teaches at the School of Public Health and the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies at Yale. Her experience includes public interest practice at Earthjustice, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
“At Vermont Law School, we teach our students that environmental law must serve all communities,” said Jennifer Rushlow, associate dean for environmental programs.
Clinic students are already involved in several cases, working in partnership with low-income communities and communities of color to address racial disparities and ensure that residents have the opportunity to fully participate in decisions that will impact their health and welfare.
One student clinician team is participating in the REJOICE project, which works with communities and stakeholders throughout Vermont in order to recommend environmental justice policy to the state. Another is working on Care v. EPA, representing a group of organizations from communities around the country that successfully sued the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to investigate civil rights complaints in a timely way. A third team is working on behalf of a community in Alabama, where residents are struggling to protect their historic black neighborhood from the negative effects of a large landfill.
Vermont Law School students have shown great interest in environmental justice. They started the nation’s first student-led Environmental Justice Law Society and co-sponsored an Environmental Justice Symposium at Duke Law School last March.
“We strive to arm our students with the full range of tools they will need to assist communities fighting environmental challenges,” said Rushlow. “To this end, we are proud to add the Environmental Justice Clinic to our experiential offerings. Our students will gain experience and skills working on law and policy issues at the nexus of environment, race, and poverty.”
For more information on the Environmental Justice Clinic, visit vermontlaw.edu/ej-clinic.
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Vermont Law School, a private, independent institution, is home to the nation’s premier environmental law program. VLS offers a juris doctor curriculum that emphasizes public service; three environmental master’s degrees—Master of Environmental Law and Policy, Master of Energy Regulation and Law, Master of Food and Agriculture Law and Policy, and a Master of Arts in Restorative Justice; and three environmental post-JD degrees —LLM in American Legal Studies (for foreign-trained lawyers), LLM in Energy Law, LLM in Environmental Law, and LLM in Food and Agriculture Law. The school’s Environmental Law Center features innovative experiential programs, including the Environmental Advocacy Clinic, the new Environmental Justice Clinic, the Energy Clinic, and the Food and Agriculture Clinic. For more information, visit vermontlaw.edu, find us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.