Environmental Justice
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What is environmental justice?
Environmental Justice(EJ) understands the joint oppression of humans and the nonhuman environment and demands justice through the restoration of land, air and water within caretaking ecologies and anti-imperialism. It challenges the white, middle and upper class mainstream environmentalist movement by centering BIPOC, low income, and immigrant communities who disproportionately shoulder environmental burdens and are excluded from decision making processes.
EJ in Chicago
The modern EJ movement began when low-income communities of color organized against polluting facilities in their neighborhoods in the 70s and 80s, including on the south side of Chicago. The mother of EJ, Hazel Johnson, founded People for Community Recovery on the southeast side of Chicago. Generations of discriminatory planning, zoning practices, and disinvestment that have segregated Chicago have also placed the burdens of pollution and climate change onto predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods. Treating Black and Brown individuals as disposable, corporate and state entities have used South and West side communities as “sacrifice zones”, dumping grounds for factories, freight operations, and waste facilities. Communities of color continue to organize for their access to clean and safe air, water, and land, including, for example, recent and ongoing battles against General Iron on the southeast side, Hilco in Little Village, and Mat Asphalt in Mckinley Park.
UChicago perpetuates environmental oppression
Through its role in the continual disinvestment, displacement, and carceral violence against Black and Brown communities on the south side, UChicago is culpable in these sacrifice zones. Land back, restoring stewardship of land to Indigenous people and restoring justice to all who have been impacted by imperialism, is an essential part of environmental justice. UChicago neither officially acknowledges that it occupies the land of the Peoria, Miami, Kickapoo, and Potawatami nations, nor has it taken any steps toward land back or restorative justice.
UChicago is also funding climate change by investing its $10.3 billion endowment into the fossil fuel industry, including fossil fuel companies and direct environmental violence like the Dakota Access Pipeline. Many members of the Board of Trustees are personally invested in the fossil fuel industry. Students have been organizing for divestment since 2012 – Environmental Justice Task Force revived this campaign in 2021 with additional calls for financial transparency and community oversight over the endowment, including a petition with over 2500 signatures and a legal complaint against the University. UChicago also previously committed to cut campus emissions by 50% by 2030 but has released no information about progress in this plan and has removed the plan from its websites. Instead of prioritizing EJ in its various climate-focused initiatives, UChicago uplifts violent capitalist approaches to the climate by choosing neoliberal economist Michael Greenstone to run its new Climate Institute and investing in a new geoengineering program. Its contributions to climate change are yet another example of the University's violence against people of color, who are disproportionately impacted by climate change globally and in Chicago.
Get Involved
Local EJ organizations
Sign the petition for fossil fuel divestment and transparency at uchicagodivest.com and follow @divestuchicago on Instagram
Join Environmental Justice Task Force, which both leads the divestment campaign and engages with local EJ initiatives – follow @ej_taskforce on Instagram
