Summit on Climate & Environmental Justice, Racism, and the Law

Join us on November 16th and 17th in Durham, North Carolina for a Summit on Climate & Environmental Justice, Racism, and the Law. The summit will bring lawyers, scholars, and frontline advocates to share information, build relationships, and center and support communities in crafting strategies and solutions. Join us as we radically imagine law & policy for repair and transformation. Space is limited. Apply now to attend.

Our movements persist–moving us toward climate, environmental, energy, water, land, housing, and disability justice, civil rights, Black Liberation, and Indigenous sovereignty. In the face of the climate crisis, we continue to choose now to imagine and advance reparative and transformative solutions. And we know each step toward dismantling the impacts of structural racism, colonialism, and extractive economies have been met with legal barriers and backlash.

How do we meet this moment? As one step forward, we will host a summit on climate and environmental justice, racism, and the law geared toward collective legal and political education and consensus building.

Our goal: to bring together lawyers, scholars, and frontline advocates to share information and center and support frontline communities in crafting strategies and solutions. Over two days, we will:

+ Share Knowledge: Create space for organizers, attorneys, and scholars to share information about the current landscape of movement advancements, threats, and visions–rooted in our history and a future of Black Liberation and Indigenous Sovereignty.

+ Build Relationships and Power: Identify intersections and build relationships of alignment, accountability, and solidarity across regions, roles and movements, embodying the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing.

+ Move toward Collective Action: Emerge ready to meet the moment with narratives and strategies that center frontline community realities, needs, and priorities, with lawyers and scholars prepared to flank frontline movements.

Your registration will serve as an expression of interest in participation in this event as in-person space is limited. We want to ensure strong representation across movements, regions, roles, and identities, with preference given to organizers from frontline movement organizations and representatives from the communities most impacted. We will be in touch to confirm your attendance by October 6th or earlier if possible.

Your registration will serve as an expression of interest in participation in this event as in-person space is limited. We want to ensure strong representation across movements, regions, roles, and identities, with preference given to organizers from frontline movement organizations and representatives from the communities most impacted. We will be in touch to confirm your attendance by October 6th or earlier if possible.

This event is hosted by Taproot Earth, North Carolina Central Law School Social Justice and Racial Equity Institute, the University of North Carolina School of Law Center for Civil Rights, and the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic and Center on Law, Race & Policy at Duke University School of Law. Please see the event page for a full list of organizations participating in the Planning and Steering Committees for the Summit.

The Summit agenda is currently in development. Day 1 will be a day of knowledge sharing and Day 2 will be a day to build relationships, alignment, narratives, and strategies rooted in the People’s Movement Assembly framework.