Overview
Inspired by principles of a Third World College, the American Cultures Environmental Justice (ACEJ) Initiative envisions a future where perspectives around the intersection of racial, social, and environmental justice are taught and prioritized at UC Berkeley. Despite existing advocacy, there's a clear need for a formalized environmental justice curriculum that fosters collaboration and supports student-driven initiatives. This initiative intends to create space on campus for collective learning, research, and mobilization around anti-colonial environmental education.
This initiative is a collaborative partnership with the American Cultures Center and the Student Environmental Resource Center’s Decolonial Environmental Network (DEN). DEN grew organically from the Decolonizing Environmentalism DeCal, which has involved 550+ students in 1.5 years and been described as transformative and effectively “changing students’ minds.” The work and success of this student-led network and course exemplifies the need for greater formalized environmental justice programming at Cal, particularly that supported by faculty and staff.
The AC Center, with its commitment to fostering publicly engaged scholarship and linking theory with practice, is helping institutionalize this critical work, ensuring students can apply decolonial and environmental justice frameworks to real-world issues. Through projects such as the development of an EJ minor, course development grants, an undergraduate community-engaged fellowship, and a cross-campus symposium, this partnership seeks to create a centralized, interdisciplinary, and community accountable platform for environmental justice education.
We invite you to explore the rest of this website to learn more about the resources and impacts of the program. To connect with the ACEJ team, please email environmentaljustice@berkeley.edu.
