The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was described by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed it into law, as an “effort to bring justice and hope to all our people.”
It has brought neither to Americans who complain of environmental discrimination.
Communities that have turned to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Civil Rights for help since the early 1990s have seen complaints filed under the law’s Title VI dismissed 95 percent of the time. Other cases have languished — sometimes for more than a decade — leaving residents without remedies and often rendering their complaints moot. The office’s track record is so weak that advocates have lost faith in the law as a way to achieve justice.
[For more of this story, written by Talia Buford, go to http://www.publicintegrity.org...-civil-rights-office]
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