Jenny Rushlow: staff Attorney, Massachusetts CLF.

• Position: FIVE QUESTIONS FOR ... - Interview

Many of CLF's battles are as important for their promise of correcting discrimination as they are for their positive impacts on the environment.

Environmental justice advocacy plays a bid rote in your work and life in general. How do you define environmental justice?

The environmental justice movement seeks to change the current reality that low income communities and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to environmental harms and inequitably denied access to environmental "goods," such as safe open space for recreation, and healthy food.

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What drew you to become involved with the environmental justice movement?

During college, I spent some time in the area surrounding my little college town of Oberlin, Ohio. Some nearby postindustrial towns had devolved into a sea of abandoned and polluted industrial lots that are the suspected causes of cancer and multiple sclerosis clusters. Getting to know an organizer from one of these communities, who was battling cancer herself as she fought to give her neighbors a seat at the decision-making table--to tell their story and fight for change for their families--was inspiring, and set me on my life's path.

Why is environmental justice important to CLF?

New England is a region full of diverse communities with plenty to celebrate. However, we are not immune to institutional racism and classism. Many of CLF's battles are as important for their promise of correcting discrimination as they are for their positive impacts on the environment. For instance, promoting access to transit in Boston is centrally important both to greenhouse gas reduction and protecting a basic resource for Boston's low income communities and communities of color--many of whom do not have cars, and bear disproportionate harm from nearby highway air pollution without gaining any of the transportation benefits.

Environmental justice emerged as movement in the 1980s. How much progress have we made since that time?

There may be fewer policies that...