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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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                                    <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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