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<div class="gmail-article-header"><h1>Clinic fights language discrimination</h1>
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<a href="https://yaledailynews.com/blog/author/nikianderson/" title="Posts by Niki Anderson" class="gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Niki Anderson</a> <span>Mar 08, 2018</span>
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Staff Reporter </p>
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<img class="gmail-card-image" src="https://ydn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MadelynKumar_YaleLawSchool.jpg">
<p class="gmail-image-credit"> <a class="gmail-image-link" href="https://yaledailynews.com/blog/author/madelynkumar/">Madelyn Kumar</a>
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<p class="gmail-p1">Yale Law School’s Environmental Justice
Clinic is mounting a legal fight against certain practices of the New
Mexico Environment Department that it says unfairly discriminate against
Spanish-speaking and other non-English-speaking communities.</p>
<p class="gmail-p1">The Environmental Justice Clinic’s work follows a 2002
complaint to the Environmental Protection Agency, which provides funding
for New Mexico Environment Department, drafted by Citizens for
Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping, along with three other
environmental advocacy groups. In the complaint, the organization
accused New Mexico Environment Department of racial and language-based
discrimination when it approved the construction of the Triassic Park
Hazardous Waste Facility in Chaves County, New Mexico, a facility the
organization claims disproportionately affects non-English-speaking
groups. The Yale clinic is now representing Citizens for Alternatives to
Radioactive Dumping, a nonprofit political group focused on the
environmental effects of radioac<span class="gmail-s1">tive waste dumping.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">“It’s a movement to fight back against
the New Mexico Environment Department’s negligence in upholding
environmental justice standards,” said Lindsay Olsen FES ’19, a student
who works in the Environmental Justice Clinic. “The [New Mexico
Environment Department] conducted their permitting process in a way that
was hostile toward people who didn’t speak English.”</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">Last month, New Mexico Environment
Department released official policy changes seeking to address this
alleged discrimination. But community groups are “outraged” by New
Mexico Environment Department’s “failure to include community voices” —
specifically non-English voices — in drafting the policy changes,
according to a press release issued last week by the Environmental
Justice Clinic and other activist groups.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">New Mexico Environment Department did not
offer a comment for this story after the News contacted the
organization on Tuesday and Wednesday.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">Noel Marquez, a Spanish-speaking New
Mexico resident and community activist, told the News that the way New
Mexico Environment Department operates makes it difficult for people who
don’t speak English to understand the organization’s politics.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">“All we’re saying is that we need to have
an open honest debate so that people can be informed and be part of the
process, especially when the waste dumping is right in these people’s
backyards,” he said. “It’s going to affect generations.”</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">Marquez added that the “inept” New
Mexican government has disregarded public opinion and that the EPA
should hold the organizations it funds to a higher standard.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">Nonetheless, the New Mexico Environment
Department’s new policies — which were released in both Spanish and
English — lay out new policies and reinforce its commitment to
nondiscrimination.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">“New Mexico Environment Department does
not condone, tolerate, practice or engage in unlawful discrimination
against any external party or parties, nor does it condone retaliation
against or intimidation of those alleging discrimination by New Mexico
Environment Department employees,” the department’s official new policy
says. “New Mexico Environment Department shall provide [limited English
proficiency] persons and populations meaningful access to New Mexico
Environment Department’s actions and proceedings.”</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">The New Mexico Environment Department was founded in 1991.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p3"><span class="gmail-s2"><b>Niki Anderson</b></span> | <a href="mailto:niki.anderson@yale.edu">niki.anderson@yale.edu</a></p></section>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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