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Abstract

For decades, environmental justice activists have struggled to find legal fixes for the environmental burdens that poor communities and people of color often face. In recent years, government agencies, academic researchers, and activists have developed an innovative new approach: computer-based environmental justice mapping (EJ-mapping) applications. Dozens of these applications have emerged, and, in some circles, enthusiasm is widespread. The applicationsÊ proponents argue that they can be "game changers" for environmental justice, and the applications now help determine regulatory obligations and distribute billions of dollars in funding. But the emergence of EJ-mapping also raises questions about whether computer-driven decisions can achieve equity, how variables like race should be factored into the applications, and if government and private actors will embrace these new technologies. More broadly, the emergence of EJ-mapping brings to a new setting recurring and difficult questions about technology, social justice, and law.

This Article addresses those questions by exploring how courts and government agencies are using, or responding to, these mapping applications. More broadly, it considers how these applications are becoming part of the architecture of environmental law. Our findings are mixed. We find growing influence and intriguing potential alongside controversy, legal vulnerabilities, reluctance to bring new technologies into old ways of doing things, and outright backlash. We also find that mapping applications can only take steps toward achieving contested visions of environmental justice, with some of the most difficult questions raised but unresolved. And we offer recommendations for future use of mapping applications.

Volume

110

Issue

4

Page

1769

Year

2026

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/

Publication Abbreviation

Minn. L. Rev.

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