New York, NY — September 2025 — NYU School of Law is preparing to formally launch its Environmental Justice Initiative (EJI), a new academic and advocacy effort designed to address environmental racism, climate injustice, and the overlapping civil rights dimensions of environmental harm. The Initiative will be inaugurated with a virtual and in‐person launch event on October 15, 2025, and aims to mobilize faculty, students, impacted communities, policy makers, and civil society around solutions that center equity and justice.
Leadership and Mission
Marianne Leslie Engelman-Lado, now Director of the Environmental Justice Initiative, will lead the Initiative’s programming. She is an adjunct professor of clinical law at NYU and has a long résumé of leadership in environmental justice, civil rights, and governmental service. Among her prior roles are serving as Deputy General Counsel for Environmental Initiatives in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator in the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. She has directed environmental justice clinics (at Yale and Vermont Law Schools), taught interdisciplinary courses involving law, public health, and the environment, and has served as senior staff attorney at Earthjustice, general counsel at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Her academic credentials include a B.A. in Government from Cornell, a J.D. from Berkeley, and an M.A. in Politics from Princeton.
The Initiative is housed jointly within NYU Law’s Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law (CRIL) and the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy, and Land Use Law, which will collaborate on its strategic direction and operations.
What the Initiative Will Do
The Environmental Justice Initiative is designed to serve multiple functions, including:
- Engaging with communities that have long suffered disproportionate environmental harm, including low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
- Expanding legal advocacy, research, policy development, and clinical training in environmental justice.
- Supporting scholarship and public education around the intersections of environmental harm, race, civil rights, and climate change.
Another component is the new Environmental Justice Laboratory (EJL), established last year through a gift from Marie Napoli (LLM ’01) and Paul Napoli. The Lab will provide law students with opportunities in litigation, policy advocacy, and research focused on environmental justice. NYU Law
Upcoming Launch Event
To kick off the EJI, NYU will host a launch event on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, from 5:15 to 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 5:15 p.m., with the program beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Key features of the launch:
- Opening Remarks by Troy McKenzie, Dean of the NYU School of Law
- A panel discussion on the past, present, and future of the environmental and climate justice movements, exploring how the new Initiative can support and shape that work.
- Panelists include:
– Charles Lee, Environmental Justice Pioneer, Retired Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
– Vernice Miller-Travis, Environmental Justice Pioneer, Co-Founder, WEACT For Environmental Justice, Executive Vice President, The Metropolitan Group,
– Abre’ Conner, Director of Environmental and Climate Justice at the NAACP - EJI Director Marianne Engelman-Lado will moderate the panel
The event is a hybrid event with virtual and in-person options. A reception will follow the panel discussion. Register for the event by clicking here.
Significance & Context
The creation of NYU’s Environmental Justice Initiative comes at a time when environmental justice is increasingly recognized as central both to climate policy and civil rights law. Histories of environmental racism—where marginalized communities bear disproportionate burdens of pollution, climate risks, or lack of access to resources—are drawing renewed scrutiny. The Initiative seeks to bridge academic, legal, community, and policy frameworks to better address these inequities.
Academic law programs, environmental clinics, and public interest groups have long engaged in this work; what is new is NYU Law’s institutional commitment to build a hub that can coordinate these efforts more comprehensively, housing scholarship, community partnership, policy work, and teaching under one umbrella. The launch of the Environmental Justice Laboratory under the EJI underscores the practical training component: giving students hands-on experience in advocacy and remediation efforts. NYU Law
Looking Ahead
Post-launch, the Initiative is expected to host further events, seminars, and continuing education components. Spring 2026 course offerings under Marianne Engelman-Lado include an Environmental and Climate Justice Lab, and an Environmental and Climate Justice Lab Seminar.
As the Initiative ramps up, its success will depend in large part on its ability to engage deeply with communities affected by environmental harm, to influence policy, and to produce scholarship that addresses both theoretical and practical challenges of justice. For stakeholders in law, policy, civil rights, environmental science, and community activism, this is a development to watch.
