Environmental Justice: History and Sociology

Environmental justice is an interdisciplinary area of study that examines the ways in which communities of color and other historically marginalized groups are disproportionately burdened with environmental hazards. Environmental justice is part of a movement that treats access to safe and healthy living environments as a vital civil right.

This course will offer students an opportunity to learn histories often ignored or forgotten, which will help bring integrity to current and future efforts for justice.  Anti-oppression and anti-racism education will be a major area of focus, studying topics like the history of the social construction of race in the U.S., white supremacy culture as compared to Indigenous relational pedagogy, racial identity development models, and the connections between structural oppression, interpersonal, and internalized oppression. Additional course topics include: histories of environmental laws and policies; and the intersections of environmental justice with other issues like affordable housing, food justice, the carceral system, healthcare, racial justice, Indigenous food sovereignty, transformative justice, and others.

This course will be taught entirely online with synchronous class meetings on Zoom and weekly asynchronous modules on Canvas. This is the first of three courses that must be taken in sequential order which comprise the Environmental Justice Certificate at Evergreen.