Ethics in Civil Engineering: Environmental Racism

The second installment in our Ethics in Civil Engineering series takes a look at environmental racism.

From greenaction.org, the factors that culminate into environmental racism are "the institutional rules, regulations, policies or government and/or corporate decisions that deliberately target certain communities for locally undesirable land uses and lax enforcement of zoning and environmental laws, resulting in communities being disproportionately exposed to toxic and hazardous waste based upon race."

So how exactly does it manifest?

With knowledge of the causes and effects of environmental racism, each of us must actively consider the possibility of our own participation, as civil engineers, in such harmful practices. What would you do and what can you do if you are assigned to a project that furthers racial inequalities or racism? Do companies you want to work for take on these projects?

For further reading and for some concrete examples, check out the full post on our Instagram!