The program's goal is to make environmental awareness an integral part of the university's curricula in the physical and biological sciences. Since 1990, the Energy Department has assisted a consortium of HBCUs with expanding environmental courses, setting up outreach programs in communities, and developing technologies to manage and dispose of hazardous and radioactive wastes safely. Federal grants from EPA have also helped some universities in the consortium develop research centers to work with affected communities. University researchers can help by posing questions for local debate and by helping negotiate resolutions to disputes over land use and the location of pollution-producing facilities. In urban centers, poor people have little political clout, so broad coalitions of concerned individuals and groups must be fashioned.
Universities can supply faculty experts and convene local groups.
And we can do a better job of teaching students about the close links between environmental justice and social and economic issues. Those of us with expertise in the medical, social, and economic dimensions of environmental problems owe it to our fellow citizens to use that knowledge to halt environmental inequities.