Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Ethics
Emory University
2006

Master of Theological Studies (M.T.S.)

Ethics
Emory University
1999

Juris Doctor (J.D.)

Law
Howard University
1991

Bachelor of Science (B.S.)

Pennsylvania State University
1989

Environmental Law

Specialty Areas: Environmental Justice, International Environmental Justice

Civil Rights Law

Specialty Areas: International and Domestic Reparations, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Race and Law before the United States Supreme Court

Administrative Law

Property Law

Environmental law

Legislation and Regulation

Environmental Justice Tesearch and Advocacy

DOE Collaborative Clean Energy Education Award PI

Lead: The Latest Federal Actions and Best Practices

Lead: The Latest Federal Actions and Best Practices

Lead has an old and even ancient legacy of harm to humans. 1 Despite this history, lead was widely used in the development of consumer goods used for and around children in the United States during the industrial era. 2 The decision to use it in two widely distributed commercial products created a public health nightmare. Leaded gasoline and leaded paint robbed countless children and adults of opportunities for greater economic prosperity, educational achievement, and deeper social engagement. 3 Moreover, death and disease have been visited upon millions of unsuspecting families and individuals around the world because of their exposure to lead. 4 In the United States alone, deaths attributable to lead exposure have been estimated at over four hundred thousand. 5 At the global level, the World Health Organization has made the following determinations: Lead exposure can have serious consequences for the health of children. At high levels of exposure to lead the brain and central nervous system can be severely damaged, which could result in a coma, convulsions, and even death. Children who survive severe lead poisoning may be left with permanent intellectual disability and behavioral disorders. At lower levels of exposure that cause no obvious symptoms, lead is now known to produce a spectrum of injury across multiple body systems. In particular, lead can affect children's brain development, resulting in reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as reduced

Environmental Justice

Environmental Justice: Law, Policy & Regulation 4th Edition

Environmental Justice: Law, Policy & Regulation explores current theory and practice concerning disproportionate environmental impacts on people and places. Based on decades of experience with community engagement, interdisciplinary scholarship, and legal authorities including environmental law and civil rights, Environmental Justice examines the range of environmental threats presently facing vulnerable populations, including communities of color; poor, immigrant, and Indigenous communities; and women, children, and older adults.

The fourth edition provides updated materials to address contemporary environmental justice concerns, including hazardous air pollutants in "Cancer Alley"; contaminated lands from the Arctic to the Southwest; drinking water contamination in Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi; and the devastation wrought by hurricanes, wildfires, and other climate-related disasters across the United States. It also examines the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and innovations for advancing environmental justice during the Biden administration, plus challenges and opportunities to continue progress during the second Trump administration.

Featuring a new chapter considering international concerns for environmental justice, this new edition also expands coverage of cumulative impacts, state and local initiatives, climate justice, disaster justice, and food justice—all with an eye towards identifying modern challenges and available tools for the continuing pursuit of environmental justice.

Climate Redress Revisited

Climate Redress Revisited: Loss and Damage, Compensation, and Reparations

Extreme events related to climate change continue to grow in frequency and consequences. Often, the nations most harmed are those least responsible for climate impacts. This dynamic has led some scholars to call for reparations to hold states accountable. This Essay reviews scholarship proposing redress for climate-related harms considering redress and reparations history and literature. To address accountability concerns, it maintains that the Loss and Damage Fund under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change establishes a floor of responsibility for nations contributing to climate change. Further, by drawing on the “polluter pays” and “no harm” principles under international law, the Essay proposes the development of climate compensation funds to address the needs of the most vulnerable countries left unmet by the loss and damage framework. The Essay outlines key features of a climate compensation mechanism utilizing newly enacted climate cost recovery legislation in New York. It concludes by rejecting broad claims for reparations based on climate change—offering instead a narrow case for climate reparations growing out of historic uses and scholarly models of redress.

Exiting the Road to Resentment

Exiting the Road to Resentment: Moving from Reactionary Reconciliation to Social Healing with Justice in World Environment and Island Studies, Vol. 7, No. 4 (pp. 175-183). (2017).

The call and the need for reparations grows out of some of the worst abuses humans have inflicted upon one another. In the aftermath of past atrocities, societies often grapple to understand their identity. They routinely struggle to reconcile their contemporary moral standing with their past actions. Pressure from internal and external groups often force governments to publicly denounce past injustices and mistreatment to establish or sustain political legitimacy. Pursuing this brings them squarely into the world of reconciliation and redress. In less than a century, countries on every continent have confronted this issue. Their approaches and outcomes have varied just as widely but lessons from their experience should guide ongoing and future efforts to achieve success.

Reparations: The Problem of Social Dominance

Reparations: The Problem of Social Dominance in World Environment and Island Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (pp. 11-19). (2016).

In theory, reparations provide redress for past injustices. They reflect political attempts to seek to balance the scales of justice in the wake of crimes against humanity, gross human rights abuses, and other tortious state action. As one of the more politically salient legal academic subjects, however, it is clear that the sociopolitical processes within and between states greatly influence when, why, and how reparations are used. Reparations theorists have done an excellent job developing vital models for use by states to provide warranted redress.

The Lingering Life of Lead Pollution: An Environmental Justice Challenge for Indiana

The Lingering Life of Lead Pollution: An Environmental Justice Challenge for Indiana

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) initially tackled the issue of race- and class-based inequities in Americans’ exposure to harmful pollutants it recognized that little research had been done on the issue as a whole with one exception—lead exposure. Today, twenty-two years later, lead exposure in  children has drastically decreased but the statement above remains true—Black children continue to have substantially higher blood lead levels than their white counterparts even when socioeconomic variables are accounted for. Indiana is no exception. African Americans and Hispanics continue to show higher rates of elevated blood lead levels than their white counterparts in Indiana.

Elevating Environmental Protection and Our Priorities

Elevating Environmental Protection and Our Priorities in Howard Magazine

Climate vulnerability disproportionately affects African American communities. One way to change this? At the polls.