About Us
Environmental justice lies at the intersection of social justice and environmental sustainability. The environmental justice movement aims to end the disproportionate impacts of environmental burdens on people of color, poor people, indigenous peoples, women, and other marginalized communities locally and globally.
Among many others, environmental injustices include: concentration of toxic waste in communities of color; lack of access to healthy food in poor neighborhoods; labor abuses in the agricultural, extractive, energy, and other industries; life-threatening climate change impacts to communities in the global south caused by emissions from the global north; dispossession of indigenous peoples to make way for protected areas.
Environmental Justice at Yale (EJAY) is a student interest group (SIG) at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE). We promote environmental justice scholarship and activism on campus. Our activities vary each year depending on the interests of our members.
During the 2020-2021 school year, EJAY hopes to get YSE students involved in activism in New Haven, such as the Yale Fair Share Coalition and the New Haven Climate Movement. We also will keep working to dismantle racism and colonialism at YSE. We recognize the school has made some steps towards this goal, but still has a long way to go. EJAY is committed to advancing much-needed conversations about race, gender and equity within the institution and beyond. We are open to new ideas and collaborations on any environmental justice issue!
