Christopher H. Foreman Jr.

Since the 1980s, the “environmental justice” (EJ) movement has claimed that industrial polluters and waste facilities are more likely to locate near minority or low-income populations. In the following viewpoint, Christopher H. Foreman Jr. argues that such charges are mostly groundless. Several studies making claims about environmental racism are flawed or have been disproven, the author maintains. Furthermore, the EJ movement is more concerned about grassroots egalitarianism than it is about serious public health issues. Foreman is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What incident first brought recognition to the environmental justice movement, according to the author?
2. According to Foreman, what did the U.S. Government Accounting Office conclude in its largely ignored 1995 study on municipal landfills?
3. In Foreman’s opinion, what are...