Biography

Professor of Law

J.D., Howard University School of Law, Merit Fellow
PH.D., Emory University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Woodruff Scholar
M.T.S., Candler School of Theology, Emory University, with honors
B.S.,  Pennsylvania State University  

Biography

Professor Carlton Waterhouse is an international expert on environmental law and environmental justice, as well as reparations and redress for historic injustices. He recently testified on the importance of reparations for African Americans before the Inter- American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States.  He is a Fulbright research scholar and is a board member of the Environmental Law Institute.  His views have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets. He is a highly sought-after speaker who regularly addresses national and international audiences. His forthcoming book with Cambridge University Press explores the historic and contemporary role of the United States Supreme Court in maintaining racial hierarchy. His scholarship includes essays, articles, and book chapters focused on the ethical and legal dimensions of environmental justice and reparations.

Professor Waterhouse is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University, where he studied engineering and the ethics of technology before deciding to study law. He is a graduate of the Howard University School of Law. While in law school, he served as an intern with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

After completing law school, Professor Waterhouse began his career as an attorney with the EPA, where he served in the Office of Regional Counsel in Atlanta, Georgia and the Office of General Counsel in Washington, D.C. At the EPA, he served as the chief counsel for the agency in several significant cases and as a national and regional expert on environmental justice, earning three of the Agency’s prestigious national awards. His responsibilities at the EPA included enforcement actions under numerous environmental statutes, the development of regional and national policy on Environmental Justice and the application of the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the EPA permitting actions.

Professor Waterhouse graduated with honors from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University with a Master of Theological Studies degree and from the Emory University Graduate School with a Ph.D. in Social Ethics.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, Professor Waterhouse examines civil rights and human rights issues in his scholarship and service.  Professor Waterhouse actively participates in national and local organizations protecting civil rights and formerly served on a advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He teaches property law, environmental law, and administrative law related courses and is building the Howard University Environmental Justice Center at Howard Law School. 

Selected Publications

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

Reparations: The Problem of Social Dominance, World Environment And Island Studies, Vol. 6, No.1 (2016) 

The Lingering Life of Lead Pollution: An Environmental Justice Challenge for Indiana, 49 Indiana L. Rev. 99 (2015) (with Ravay Smith).

Environmental Justice: A Deadly Symptom of Larger Problems, 3 Journal Of Healthcare, Science And The Humanities 102 (2013) 

A Response to Legal Punishment as Civic Ritual, 82 Miss L.J. 59 (2013)

Dr. King's Speech: Surveying the Landscape of Law and Justice in the Speeches, Sermons, and Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, 30 Law & Ineq. 91 (2012)

Total Recall: Restoring the Public Memory of Enslaved African-Americans and the American System of Slavery Through Rectificatory Justice and Reparations, 14 J. Gender Race & Just. 703 (2011)

No Reparations Without Taxation, 7 Pitt. Tax Rev.159 (2010) (with Andre Smith).

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly: Moral Agency And The Role of Victims in Reparations Programs, 31 U. Pa. J. Int’l. L. 257 (2009).

Follow the Yellow Brick Road: Perusing the Path to Constitutionally Permissible Reparations for Slavery and Jim Crow Era Governmental Discrimination, 62 Rutgers L. Rev. 163 (2009).