Events
Launch Event
October 15, 2025 | 5:30 p.m. (doors open at 5:15 p.m.)
Lipton Hall, Faculty Club, NYU School of Law
Environmental Justice Initiative Director Marianne Engelman-Lado will moderate a panel discussion on "The Past, Present, and Future of Environmental & Climate Justice—and How Can the New Environmental Justice Initiative Support the Movement?"
Panelists
Charles Lee
Visiting Scholar, Howard University School of Law
Charles Lee is widely recognized as a true environmental justice (EJ) pioneer, thought leader, and a founder of the EJ movement in the US. He was the principal author of the landmark 1987 report, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States, organized the historic 1991 First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, and helped spearhead the emergence of federal EJ policy. He has served in multiple capacities, including creating the United Church of Christ’s EJ program and directing EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice. Mr. Lee is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Howard University School of Law. He recently left his position as the Senior Policy Advisor for Environmental Justice at EPA’s newly created national program office on environmental justice and civil rights. He has served on the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, as a charter member, National Academy of Science/Institute of Medicine Committee on Environmental Justice, and numerous other panels. In these capacities, he has led efforts to incorporate EJ into EPA’s rulemaking process, develop models for collaborative problem-solving, transform brownfields redevelopment into a community revitalization paradigm, advance EJ at the state level, and advance efforts to address cumulative impacts. Mr. Lee written numerous reports and peer reviewed journal articles and has received many awards and honors. His work is featured at the Smithsonian Institution and other museums, along with the archival of his professional papers at the Library of Congress.
Vernice Miller-Travis
Executive Vice President at Metropolitan Group
Vernice Miller-Travis is one of the nation’s pioneers, leading experts, and most respected thought leaders on environmental justice. Early in her career she served as a research and production assistant for the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice. In this role she helped to research, write, and produce the landmark 1987 report: Toxic Waste and Race in the United States.
She is also a deeply skilled practitioner in cross-cultural engagement and organizational development with significant expertise in clean air, hazardous waste remediation, and clean water public policy and regulatory systems. She is trained as an environmental and urban planner and has worked for more than thirty years to integrate environmental and public health considerations into the field of urban and land use planning.
Vernice consults for federal and state agencies, foundations and nonprofits. Prior to becoming a consultant, she established the environmental justice initiative for NRDC and as a Program Officer, initiated the environmental justice grantmaking portfolio for the Ford Foundation. Vernice has extensive experience working with communities that have undergone economic disinvestment and environmental degradation by facilitating community-based planning and implementing community revitalization and sustainable redevelopment initiatives and projects. She has the proven ability to bring unlikely partners and diverse stakeholders from all sectors together to help find shared goals and solutions. She is trained in environmental conflict mediation, alternative dispute resolution, and how to navigate longstanding racial, cultural and economic conflicts.
Vernice is the co-founder of WeACT for Environmental Justice and serves on its board, she is also an appointee of Gov. Wes Moore to the board of trustees of the Chesapeake Bay Trust foundation. She also serves on the board's of Clean Water Action/Clean Water Fund, Land Loss Prevention Project, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council’s Action Fund, Patuxent Riverkeeper, and on the advisory boards of Green Leadership Trust, and Imani Energy.
Vernice is a highly sought after public speaker, lecturer, and writer.
Abre’ Conner
Director of Environmental and Climate Justice at the NAACP
Abre' Conner, Esq. is the Director of the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice and oversees the strategy and collaboration across the NAACP to dismantle environmental racism. She has taught Education Law and is currently faculty in the Environmental Policy and Management Program at the University of California-Davis.
A native of Lakeland, FL, Abre' served as the Directing Attorney of Health at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley where she led the litigation, direct legal services work, and advocacy regarding health equity and the social determinants of health that impact historically excluded communities across the Silicon Valley. Before joining the Law Foundation, Abre' was a staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, where she advocated for the civil rights and liberties of Central Valley and Northern California residents, including an emphasis on issues that impact people of color in rural communities such as environmental justice. As a staff attorney at the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment in Delano, CA, Abre' primarily worked with migrant farmworkers and in unincorporated communities. She has worked at numerous civil rights entities including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, and Capitol Hill. She was also an associate in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel in the Obama Administration. Abre' served as the elected Assembly Speaker for the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, the chief policy officer for the Division, and is an appointed member of the ABA's Commission on Youth at Risk Advisory Board and Children's Rights Litigation Working Group. Under her leadership, the Division adopted a resolution declaring racism as a public health crisis which is now ABA policy. She currently sits on the ABA's Board of Governors, Earthjustice's Board of Trustees, and was appointed to the EPA's first HBCU-MSI Advisory Council.
A graduate of American University, Washington College of Law, and the University of Florida, Abre' has been named a top 40 under 40 Nation's Best Advocate by the National Bar Association, top 100 leader by Fresno Black Chamber of Commerce, top 40 On the Rise Attorneys by the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, Community Champion by Fresno Building Healthy Communities, 40 under 40 alumni by the University of Florida, 40 under 40 Young, Gifted, and Green recipient, and has been featured in the New York Times' The Daily, Essence, Forbes Magazine, American Bar Association Journal, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated's National Magazine, The Archon, and Cosmopolitan Magazine.