Law & Advocacy Events

Law and Advocacy Events

The Initiative issued a new report, The Stench of Sustainability, on noxious emissions from the Darling animal rendering plant in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point, produced by our Law and Advocacy Lab for community partner Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice. Operated by Darling for over 50 years, the plant processes animal carcasses and grease from local restaurant traps and turns them into usable materials. But the Darling plant has also blanketed the surrounding neighborhood with “nauseating fumes” for years, adding to the stresses faced by a low-income and racially diverse community that is already overburdened by many other environmental hazards.  The Stench of Sustainability summarizes data in public documents obtained from three agencies that regulate Darling’s operations, and provides recommendations for reducing the plant’s impact on the community. The report was co-authored by the Initiative’s Zsea Bowmani and Elias Rodriguez (SCU Law ‘21), with editorial assistance from SCU undergraduates Emily Pachoud, Hannah Trillo, and Grace Yonkers-Talz. Read more about the project on the Law and Advocacy Lab’s blog.

Chad Raphael presented on “Communication, Community-Engaged Research, and Environmental Justice” to 50 researchers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research & Development. In this invited talk, Chad described the unique value of community-engaged approaches to doing research on environmental justice and the broad spectrum of ways in which the public can be involved in this research. He also proposed a brief research agenda for community-engaged research on environmental communication, especially to foster trust and overcome polarized responses to environmental science. The talk came as the EPA is preparing to open its new Community-Engaged Research Collaborative for Learning and Excellence (CERCLE), which “will help bring EPA’s science into alignment with the needs of local, underrepresented or underserved communities [to] co-produce actionable knowledge and sustainable solutions.”

Members of the Initiative joined the Rally for Juristac to support the Amah Mutson Tribal Band’s campaign to protect their sacred lands from a proposed sand and gravel quarry. The Initiative also coordinated SCU community members and water experts to sign comment letters on the Environmental Impact Report on the project, urging rejection of the proposed mine because of irreparable damage to natural and cultural resources the quarry would cause. 

The Initiative’s Zsea Bowmani with Shelby Coyne of SCU School of Law presented on climate law cases that are making a difference in combating global warming, calling out environmental injustices, and decelerating ecological collapse.

>> watch the video

Zsea Bowmani was invited to speak about his research and forthcoming publication on Black queer ecofeminism as a means to challenge the underlying beliefs that drive social and environmental inequities while also encouraging cross-disciplinary dialogue to develop equitable legal responses to the climate crisis and other instances of environmental degradation. International Conference on Queer Ecologies was organized by Department of English and Cultural Studies at Christ Deemed to Be University, Bangalore, India.

ELS, tUrn and EJ&CGI worked together to bring: “An Evening of Law & Climate Justice”. This event featured a panel discussion on national environmental law issues followed by a panel led by members of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice to who discussed local issues!

Below you can view a list of the panelists, including the Initiative's Zsea Bowmani: 

In April, Santa Clara University adjunct lecturer Zsea Bowmani presented a poster at the 2021 New Horizons on Conservation Conference in May, hosted by Yale School of the Environment. Zsea’s poster, entitled, “Now is the Time for Black Queer Feminist Ecology,” is based upon his forthcoming article for the Tulane Journal of Law & Sexuality and describes the ways in which an approach that draws from multiple traditions including Black ecology, Black feminism, queer ecology, and ecofeminism, and rooted in environmental and climate justice frameworks can address historical harms and inform equitable responses to the climate crisis and other instances of environmental degradation.

Professor Yang spoke with staff members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee about impediments and options to advance US ratification of the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste, an issue that has gained recent attention because of the increasing importance of plastics pollution. He also served as an advisor to the climate diplomacy committee of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo’s High School Student Advisory Board, which focused its attention this academic year on global climate change issues.

For tUrn week Zsea Bowmani moderated a panel on the law and climate, featuring SCU Law students Simiran Chanda, Shelby Coyne, and Ranika Sharma. Panelists discussed the significance of four major climate justice cases from the US and Ecuador and how the legal system can be used as one of many tools to address the global climate crisis and advance environmental justice: Julianna v. US, California Chamber of Commerce v. California Air Resources Board, Massachusetts v. EPA, and Sarayaku v. Ecuador.

Zsea Bowmani (’14 Law School), a National Lawyers Guild Weinglass Fellow, was a guest lecture in Professor Tseming Yang’s Environmental Protection Law class. In his role, Zsea provides legal expertise to two grassroots organizations working to challenge an upscale mega development that will add significant air pollution in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point, a low-income community of color already burdened with multiple pollution sources. Zsea is also working with Professor Yang to develop a multidisciplinary environmental justice legal clinic at SCU to engage students across various disciplines in similar community-based advocacy.

2020.9.14 Environmental Protection Law Guest Lecture

On August 27, the Law School’s Center for Global Law and Policy, Center for Social Justice and Public Service, and the High Tech Law Institute sponsored a webinar on climate change. Tseming Yang (Law School) moderated a lively panel of speakers from the Environmental Defense Fund; Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand; and the Environmental Defender's Office in Sydney, Australia. The speakers were attorneys and scholars directly engaged in this work, and offered their thoughts and experiences on international climate negotiations, climate adaptation in the Mekong River Delta, and pending climate litigation in Australia.

Tseming Yang(the Environmental Justice and the Common Good Initiative) moderated a lively panel of speakers from the Environmental Defense Fund; Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand; and the Environmental Defender's Office in Sydney, Australia. The speakers offered their thoughts and experiences on international climate negotiations, climate adaptation in the Mekong River Delta, and pending climate litigation in Australia. This webinar on climate change was sponsored by Law School’s Center for Global Law and Policy, Center for Social Justice and Public Service, and the High Tech Law Institute.

Tseming Yang, along with law professor Margaret Russell, SCU law students, and Co-Lead Counsel for the Plaintiffs, Philip Gregory (JD/MBA ’80) discussed the historic climate change lawsuit brought by youth.

Alumnae and former research assistant Déjà Thomas (‘16) discussed environmental justice in California, including Thomas’ action-oriented research on food justice, race, and transformative climate adaptation in Southern California. Like her SCU faculty mentor Christopher Bacon, Thomas was recently awarded a Switzer Fellowship. She is completing a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning, as well as a Food Studies Certificate, at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs.