A lot of the federal employees who have been fired, and leaders of programs being axed, have reported receiving a letter or an email stating that their services/programs are “no longer aligned with the priorities of the current administration.” What does it mean to be aligned with these priorities?

 For one thing, it means that certain words and concepts are now forbidden.  In this “governance by keyword search,” the triggers for elimination of initiatives and individual job titles appear to include  “accessibility,” “justice,” “discrimination,” “resiliency,” “women,” “African-American,” “disability,” “disadvantaged” and “underserved,” along with key factual understandings relating to climate change and health care. In a kind of demented de-cluttering, the current regime seems to be very busy getting rid of the things that are lasting and worthwhile to make room for the administrative equivalent of junk.  

For example, the Environmental Protection Agency celebrated Earth Day 2025 by announcing that it will close the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and dismiss or reassign its 300 employees. The agency is also dismantling NEJAC—the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council—a panel of scientists, medical professionals and public health experts who, over the past three decades, have advised the EPA about the health impacts of lead exposure, PFAS, pesticides and the cumulative health impacts experienced by communities where a number of polluting facilities are co-located. Private organizations are working to preserve NEJAC’s invaluable data and documents.    

For years, the EPA has defined environmental justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, culture, national origin, income, or educational levels, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of protective environmental laws, regulations and policies.”  The current regime hasn’t just moved away from those environmental priorities, it has turned the definition of justice upside down.  

Take the case of Lowndes County in Alabama, one of the poorest counties in the nation. Like many rural areas, Lowndes County lacks municipal water and sewage infrastructure, and its majority-Black community has appealed for decades to the Alabama Department of Public Health for assistance with failing septic systems that sent raw sewage into yards and streets.  With the cost of new septic tanks topping $10,000, county residents simply do not have the means to take care of the problem alone. But instead of offering help, state public health officials threatened residents with arrest and eviction. 

Eventually, Lowndes County native and future MacArthur Fellow Catherine Coleman Flowers, who was then working as an economic consultant to the county, began investigating conditions and instigated a health study lead by the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Thirty-four percent of the residents tested showed genetic traces of hookworm, an intestinal parasite caused by exposure to fecal-contaminated soil. The worm causes anemia and impairs physical and cognitive development in children. Although hookworm had largely been eradicated in the US by the 1960s, the Baylor study confirmed that there is a strong correlation with extreme poverty and lack of proper sanitation even in advanced countries like ours.

In response, Ms. Flowers founded the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ) and filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of the residents of Lowndes County.

In 2023 it looked as if a solution was finally within reach, when the U.S. Department of Justice worked with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate a settlement with the state of Alabama: state officials agreed to stop pursuing criminal charges against residents and to work with local nonprofit organizations serving as sub-grantees to design and install appropriate systems. This landmark effort was the first time in U.S. history that federal civil rights laws had been used to alleviate an environmental injustice.

All that just went out the window. The new administration terminated the agreement last month, calling it an “illegal DEI and environmental justice policy.” Never mind the fact that Catherine Flowers’ research has demonstrated that lack of basic sanitation is a widespread problem for the 46 million Americans of every race who live in rural counties across the U.S., and that the strategies CREEJ has developed could benefit them all. In the twisted logic of the new DOJ, it is inherently racist and discriminatory to try to remediate or even acknowledge the historical record of racial and economic discrimination, neglect, unequal infrastructure investment, or the resulting environmental and health damage to a Black community.  

CREEJ continues to work to alleviate environmental challenges in Lowndes County, in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” and in Allensworth, CA, and to address climate change with innovative initiatives that support policy, technology and research. The organization believes that all human beings have a right to clean air, water and soil.  Does our government?