[lg policy] New Mexico: Clinic fights language discrimination

[Harold Schiffman]

 Clinic fights language discrimination

Niki Anderson <https://yaledailynews.com/blog/author/nikianderson/> Mar 08,
2018

Staff Reporter

Madelyn Kumar <https://yaledailynews.com/blog/author/madelynkumar/>

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.

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 radioactive waste dumping.

“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.”

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.

New Mexico Environment Department did not offer a comment for this story
after the News contacted the organization on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

The New Mexico Environment Department was founded in 1991.

*Niki Anderson* | niki.anderson at yale.edu


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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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