Principles of Environmental Justice

Delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held on October 24-27, 1991, in Washington DC, drafted and adopted 17 principles of Environmental Justice. Since then, The Principles have served as a defining document for the growing grassroots movement for environmental justice.

PREAMBLE

WE, THE PEOPLE OF COLOR, gathered together at this multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to begin to build a national and international movement of all peoples of color to fight the destruction and taking of our lands and communities, do hereby re-establish our spiritual interdependence to the sacredness of our Mother Earth; to respect and celebrate each of our cultures, languages and beliefs about the natural world and our roles in healing ourselves; to ensure environmental justice; to promote economic alternatives which would contribute to the development of environmentally safe livelihoods; and, to secure our political, economic and cultural liberation that has been denied for over 500 years of colonization and oppression, resulting in the poisoning of our communities and land and the genocide of our peoples, do affirm and adopt these Principles of Environmental Justice:

1) Environmental Justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction.

2) Environmental Justice demands that public policy be based on mutual respect and justice for all peoples, free from any form of discrimination or bias.

3) Environmental Justice mandates the right to ethical, balanced and responsible uses of land and renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for humans and other living things.

4) Environmental Justice calls for universal protection from nuclear testing, extraction, production and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes and poisons and nuclear testing that threaten the fundamental right to clean air, land, water, and food.

5) Environmental Justice affirms the fundamental right to political, economic, cultural and environmental self-determination of all peoples.

6) Environmental Justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the containment at the point of production.

7) Environmental Justice demands the right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making, including needs assessment, planning, implementation, enforcement and evaluation.

8) Environmental Justice affirms the right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment. It also affirms the right of those who work at home to be free from environmental hazards.

9) Environmental Justice protects the right of victims of environmental injustice to receive full compensation and reparations for damages as well as quality health care.

10) Environmental Justice considers governmental acts of environmental injustice a violation of international law, the Universal Declaration On Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on Genocide.

11) Environmental Justice must recognize a special legal and natural relationship of Native Peoples to the U.S. government through treaties, agreements, compacts, and covenants affirming sovereignty and self-determination.

12) Environmental Justice affirms the need for urban and rural ecological policies to clean up and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature, honoring the cultural integrity of all our communities, and provided fair access for all to the full range of resources.

13) Environmental Justice calls for the strict enforcement of principles of informed consent, and a halt to the testing of experimental reproductive and medical procedures and vaccinations on people of color.

14) Environmental Justice opposes the destructive operations of multi-national corporations.

15) Environmental Justice opposes military occupation, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms.

16) Environmental Justice calls for the education of present and future generations which emphasizes social and environmental issues, based on our experience and an appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives.

17) Environmental Justice requires that we, as individuals, make personal and consumer choices to consume as little of Mother Earth's resources and to produce as little waste as possible; and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritize our lifestyles to ensure the health of the natural world for present and future generations.

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The Proceedings to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit are available from the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 475 Riverside Dr. Suite 1950, New York, NY 10115.

Another source of information is the Environmental Justice Resource Center (EJRC) at Clark Atlanta University.

Source: http://www.ejnet.org/ej/principles.html

Why Israel-Palestine Isn’t an Abstract Issue: Water & Environmental Injustice

by Lauren Samuel

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/30/water-crisis-gaza

Water is a human right. It is crucial for health, dignity, prosperity, and most importantly, life; every human being deserves unbounded access to this natural resource. Unfortunately, this is not the case throughout our globe. As a member of Students for Justice in Palestine, I feel it is important to recognize that the “justice” we strive for certainly extends to and encompasses environmental justice.

The 1995 Oslo II Accords between Israel and Palestine established the injustice of disproportionate access and control of water, with Israelis having far better access to water and sanitation and leaving Palestinians with severe water shortages. This systematic, oppressive control is not a myth, a philosophical dispute, or a debate of statehood. Instead, this blatant discrimination that is resulting in the constraining of a human right as natural and necessary as water.

Through bureaucratic laws and enforcements, Israel managed to maintain and control 94 percent of the Western Aquifer for their purposes. Israel extracts over 80 percent more water than regulated by the Oslo II Accords. There has been a resulting decrease in water access by Palestinians between 1999 and 2007, instead of the expected increase. Furthermore, Israel is over-extracting the water from the Aquifer and, according to the World Bank, is extremely close to causing “irreversible damage” to this resource.

Source: http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/7886/gaza-water-confined-and-contaminated

Some sources have stated that each day the average Israeli uses over four times the amount of water as the average Palestinian. Such asymmetry, set side by side with other policies of occupation and apartheid is not surprising. Israel’s control of water sources in the West Bank, and its inhibition of Palestinian access to water and sanitation is a byproduct of an unjust system of oppression.

Wherever you feel like you “stand” on the Israel-Palestine “conflict” (though in this author’s opinion, calling it such a term is an injustice to the Palestinian struggle), these facts are out in the open, proving the injustice to be clear as day. As Tufts students we may feel far away from these issues, but really we are complicit. As citizens of a country that provides more aid to Israel, the world’s third largest military, than to all of Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined, we are paying to facilitate this occupation. If you feel like American funds should not be spent facilitating environmental injustice and environmental racism, then educate yourself further and stand up against this flagrant disregard of environmental justice, human rights and humanity.

Fossil Fuel Divestment

As Tufts students, we feel that we have a responsibility to guide our university towards real and effective solutions to climate change, not only to protect our futures but more importantly, to protect those who are already feeling the effects of the climate catastrophe. Student group Tufts Climate Action (TCA), formerly known as Tufts Divest, has been running a fossil fuel divestment campaign for three years. They have asked the Board of Trustees to withdraw their investments—seventy million dollars—in the top two hundred  publicly traded fossil fuel companies within five years because it is morally egregious to profit from the destruction of the planet. Despite the urgency of climate change and divestment wins globally, our ask has not been taken seriously by members of the board, who told us two semesters ago that they would not consider divestment. While this may seem like a loss, the students in TCA will not take no for an answer. About 30 members of TCA are currently occupying Ballou Hall, refusing to leave until the administration agrees to divest. This action is part of a nationwide escalation by the Divestment Student Network (DSN).

TCA wants the whole campus to know that we are not doing this for the polar bears or for the glaciers. While these mainstream images of environmental movements have their own importance, our group wants to emphasize a narrative of environmental justice as it relates to global climate change. Fossil fuel companies are one of the main contributors of the greenhouse gases which warm our planet, and those feeling the effects of rising temperatures are not the ones who are causing them. The family of a white male CEO of a fossil fuel company like Shell, who lives in a large home in America, will not necessarily feel any negative impact from a rise in temperature. A brown family of indigenous peoples living in the Pacific Islands, may actually see ocean water creeping closer and closer to their home, and know that in only a few years their entire country could be underwater. This is environmental injustice.

In TCA, we see climate change as a symptom of larger issues in our global society. Do we think it is a coincidence that the majority of people who are currently affected by climate change are not white? Do we think that an economic system that depends on the continuous exploitation of people and resources can coexist with an ecologically sustainable society? No, we see systems like white supremacy and capitalism as the root causes of the destruction of our climate and our human family. Divestment from fossil fuels is a powerful act of resistance against the systems that tell us that profit is more valuable than human lives.

Members of our class in front of President Monaco's desk

Urban Environmental Justice: Community Site Visit of Alternatives for Community and Environment in Roxbury, MA

On Thursday April 2nd, our class visited a community site in Roxbury, MA led by Alternatives for Community and Environment’s (ACE) former Executive Director and Urban Environmental Policy and Planning (UEP) professor Penn Loh and youth organizer Tyree Ware. ACE is an environmental justice organization primarily based in Roxbury, MA but also works on a variety of environmental justice issues across Massachusetts both with communities of color and of low-income. While the main focus of our class is on environmental justice as it applies globally, it is important to locate environmental injustices occurring in our local communities and involve ourselves in the justice movements for environmental, labor, housing, food, youth, socioeconomic, etc.

Our visit began with a brief history of the urban renewal that occurred all over the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s, urban renewal processes such as eminent domain were used to knock down land and re-make urban centers for a different community that was predominantly white and well-off. Urban renewal in Roxbury particularly took the form of the building of an I-95 highway through South End, Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, and part of Fenway. The city tore down the homes of thousands of residents, which resulted in many abandoned buildings and vacant lots.

After community opposition, a compromise was struck in the 1980s- the city would instead build an Amtrak system and the commuter rail, and relocate the existing elevated Orange Line along Washington Street. They promised an alternative transit corridor that would have equal or better services. Finally, in 2002, the city installed a series of buses--the Silver Line-- which would shuttle residents and workers to and from the community. The “Silver Lie,” however, was nowhere near equal or better service- the large number and concentration of buses, the exhaust fumes from their idling, and the slowness of transportation were clear transit, health, and environmental injustices. During our visit, a community member overheard Penn and Tyree’s account of this history and yelled, “the promise was never fulfilled.”

ACE wanted to organize and work with the community, and thus started community-driven initiatives such as the T Riders Union (TRU) to improve transit and public space. TRU has also worked on assuring that T rates do not spike up and become even less affordable for working-class, poor folks because the city is in a structural deficit wherein their funding is not covering their costs and are in a lot of debt. TRU has worked with youth on a Youth Affordabili(T) Pass so that younger people may pay at a discounted rate for the T.

However, there is also fear of being “victims of our own success.” The community work being done to improve local health and to revitalize the space may lead to current residents not being able to live there as the neighborhood becomes more desirable. That is why ACE is part of housing coalitions such as Right to the City wherein they advocate people’s right to remain. Currently, Right to the City is working on raising awareness and passing legislation for just cause eviction, which will only allow tenants to be evicted under just causes [nonpayment of rent], versus at the landlord’s whim [when rent prices go up and they want to make a profit]. ACE is also supporting projects to preserve and build permanently affordable housing, as well as considering community land trusts which will allow land to be controlled by a coalition of the local community.

One of the most memorable spots on our community site visit was to one of ACE’s community gardens, which were built on formerly vacant lots that the community reclaimed. Toxic trash left in these lots has polluted the soil, so a tarp was used as a protective between the original soil and the raised beds that were built there by the community. This reclamation is part of ACE’s youth-led community group, Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project’s (REEP) food justice campaign Grow or Die. Youth leaders were frustrated by the lack of healthy and affordable food in the community, and began the campaign that, to date, has transformed five lots into community gardens and several household gardens. As Tyree succinctly put, we must either “grow our own food or die from what the system is feeding us.”  

ACE’s roots are in the larger environmental justice movement. As Penn related to us on our tour, lawyers Charlie Lord and Bill Shutlin were at a mainstream environmental conference where they met environmental justice activists who challenged them to focus on their own communities. While protecting wildlife was important, who would protect their own communities from environmental harm? This was the inspiration for founding ACE.

While ACE is involved in coalitions and campaigns with groups across the greater Boston area and Massachusetts, it primarily serves the Roxbury neighborhood. Roxbury is a historically and predominantly Black neighborhood and center of culture. Malcolm X and civil rights activist Melnea Cass have called Roxbury home. ACE’s work follows in Cass’s legacy: she supported women’s suffrage and helped women register to vote after the passage of the 19th amendment. In Roxbury, she worked with people who had been left homeless thanks to urban renewal and fought against racial segregation as an organizer and activist. Much of her work is evocative of current ACE campaigns, especially around opposition to gentrification and racism through community activism and political engagement.

ACE has had a number of historical successes in their struggles against environmental racism and injustice. One of these earliest victories was against a proposed asphalt plant in the late ‘90’s. In his book The Land that Could be, Environmentalism and Democracy in the 21st Century, ACE founder Shutkin writes that existing environmental laws were not strict enough to stop the plant from further poisoning communities already facing disproportionate negative health impacts. This raises the question: Who are these laws for? What purpose do they serve? It necessitated community organizing to make the issue heard and involve the Board of Health of the Boston Public Health Commission, which ruled against the plant.

Since that initial victory, ACE has built an air quality monitoring station by the Dudley Square bus terminal, forced a polluting construction company to clean up asbestos waste, helped stop a diesel power plant in Chelsea, won the addition of 100 non-diesel fueled buses, and pressured Massachusetts to create an Environmental Justice Policy, which it did in 2002. It is worth noting that ACE’s approaches to environmental justice work are diverse. Sometimes, they are oppositional, in protesting the construction of new polluting infrastructure or forcing previous polluters to pay. Other times, they are legal, in advocating for public policy. And still other times, they are autonomous: ACE sees a problem, and then creates the solutions itself.

Sources: Melnea Cass http://massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=179; Famous Figures from Roxbury http://www.boston.com/yourtown/boston/roxbury/gallery/famous_figures_roxbury/

website: http://www.ace-ej.org/ facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ace.ej?fref=ts

twitter (@aceEJ) https://twitter.com/AceEJ

Earth Democracy

-What does Vandana Shiva say "Earth Democracy" is? 

-Why is it our responsibility to know what we consume? 

-How does what we consume affect our environment? 

Click the link below to learn how a nation founded on democracy fails to uphold the principle of equality when it comes to food production.

WEBSITE: http://woodspeace.wix.com/environmentaljustice

 Hindu prayer recited by Vandana Shiva in her talk about Earth Democracy:

"This universe is for all beings and their happiness.

Enjoy the gifts without greed. 

Shun greed,

 and remember at every point of enjoying the gifts of the earth, that others have a share.

Do not take their share.

Do not steal from other species, other humans, and generations to come."

A Critical History of Tufts and Boston's Chinatown

The formation of Chinatowns in the late 1800s was the direct result of the discrimination against and exclusion of Chinese immigrants from the urban spaces in which they settled. Because immigrant communities were monolingual, low-income, and working class manual laborers, governments paid little attention to their needs and Chinese residents had to become self-sustaining in order to survive.

Today, Chinatowns are being threatened as urban renewal seeks to exploit the communities and gentrification follows rapidly to displace long-time community members. Urban renewal projects throughout the mid-twentieth century facilitated the demolishing of 1,200 units of housing in Boston’s Chinatown for the construction of two major highways, I-93 and the Massachusetts Turnpike. Chinatown was split by the highways and thousands of residents were displaced. This disregard for residents’ well-being and survival reflects the city’s deprioritization of the population. Because Chinese residents were seen as less important, their homes and communities were seen as disposable. This is a clear instance of environmental racism, in which people of color are systematically placed in closer proximity to environmental hazards or otherwise have their communities threatened. The cleared land from the demolishing was sold to developers for upscale housing and institutional use. These institutions include Tufts University and the New England Medical Center, now called the Tufts Medical Center, which now occupies over one third of Chinatown’s land area.

A map of Tufts' institutions in Chinatown

More recently, at the same time as communities are organizing to improve local working and living conditions, Boston’s Chinatown is becoming perceived as an exotic frontier or desirable housing location for outsiders. The neighborhood is experiencing gentrification, which is the economic and political process of an influx of capital and development into often low-income, working class communities. Gentrification results in higher housing prices, higher average incomes, and the displacement of original residents of the community. Chinatown’s history and current-day conditions of neglect, demolition, and redevelopment demonstrate the environmental racism that the community faces and the part that our university plays in it.

Particularly, Tufts’ institutional expansion in Chinatown and the community’s resultant fight for survival and justice is demonstrated in the case of Parcel C, a small plot of land in Chinatown. In early 1993, Tufts University Medical School and New England Medical Center proposed building an eight-story, 455 car garage on Parcel C, but development was halted by a strong community organizing response. The garage would have presented a “significant environmental hazard” to the local neighborhood by contributing to air pollution, traffic congestion, and overall lack of safety in the neighborhood. In addition, the garage would endanger nearby community members at Acorn Day Care, the elementary school, a community health center, and residents at a nearby low-income housing development for the elderly and disabled.

However, Chinatown’s struggle would not be an easy one. New England Medical Center worked concurrently with the Boston Redevelopment Authority and Chinese business owners comprising the Chinatown Neighborhood Council to push forward the garage construction. In 1993, the BRA was in multimillion dollar debt and thus actively supported New England Medical Center’s offer of two million dollars for Parcel C and an easy approval process.

Chinatown activists and community members that opposed the construction formed the Coalition to Protect Parcel C. The coalition circulated petitions, conducted community referendums, campaigned for language access of meetings and documents, launched media campaigns, built alliances with environmental groups, sought legal support, acquired research about the dangers of air pollution in minority communities, linked themselves to the healthcare movement, and worked with other communities of color threatened by environmental hazards. After a decade-long struggle, local organizers succeeded in halting the development project and instead led the construction of residential units as well as community space on Parcel C. However, Chinatown’s fight against gentrification and displacement continues, due to ongoing luxury development, gentrification, Tufts’ heavy presence, influx of Tufts medical students, and desire for institutional expansion.

As an institution, Tufts is implicated in these issues affecting communities that surround it. But as we have seen before, the university often remains silent and does not speak about these problems. This is an issue of environmental justice because Chinatown is systematically disempowered, creating incredible difficulties for residents and community members in terms of accessing resources and a higher quality of life.

[Excerpted] Shadow of our Light: Tufts' Institutional Expansion into Medford/Somerville

In September of last year, Medford resident Kim Costa addressed Boston students in a video that later went viral: “Real quick reminder to all the college students coming back to Boston to continue their higher education… nobody likes you, you’re a visitor here; an interloper.” In a later interview, Costa comments, “I meant it. I grew up near Tufts, I worked in Davis Square for 10 years—these kids suck. They don’t tip, and they’re the ones flipping cars during the fucking World Series.” Judging by the 4,000 times the video has been shared and the many supportive comments from people in other college towns and touristy areas, it is clear that college students can be perceived as outsiders and invaders to their host communities. Many students are unaware of their impact on local residents and view them as “townie” outsiders, which demonstrates the elitist attitude Tufts students have about the people whose neighborhoods we occupy and enjoy.

As Tufts extends its unofficial borders into our surrounding neighborhoods, local residents and businesses are concurrently being pushed out of their long-time communities. In Medford and Somerville, Tufts students are living in local housing units, taking up the housing stock, and contributing to rising rent prices. Rents in Somerville and Medford have consistently increased over the past few years, and are expected to continue rising with the MBTA’s Green Line Extension (GLX) to College Avenue. Currently at the forefront of Tufts’ development, the GLX project will extend the T into Medford and reach Tufts campus by the year 2020. The GLX stop in Ball Square is slated to force two long-time Medford businesses to abandon their current location because they are in the way of construction. While the GLX is relocating local businesses, driving up rent prices, and displacing long-time residents, Tufts stands to benefit from the GLX’s convenient T stop on campus at College Avenue.

Historically, new transit stops are associated with increasing rent prices. According to a 2014 report by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), “Dimensions of Displacement,” rents within a half-mile walking distance of the College Avenue stop could rise nearly $300. The creation of the Red Line’s stop in Davis Square demonstrates this phenomenon. Before the extension of the Red Line to Davis in the mid-1980s, the area was largely working class, but today it is has some of the highest rents in the city.

Maps from MAPC's "Dimensions of Displacement" Report contrasting presence of college students to cost-burden to local lower income renter households

The GLX is just one example of how Tufts benefits from local resources in Medford and Somerville. Tufts does not have the housing stock necessary to house its undergraduate population. As a result, almost one third of Tufts undergraduates live off-campus and benefit from local housing. As previously mentioned, these students both suffer from, and contribute to, rising rents in the area. They are desperate to find off-campus apartments, leading many to sign leases that start in June as early as September and October. Landlords are able to take advantage of students’ urgency and ability to pay, seeing as how many Tufts students living off-campus oftentimes come from privileged class backgrounds.

In response to these circumstances, a shock to the local housing market may be in the near future. Due to a proposed Somerville law, Tufts may soon have to provide the city with the addresses of students living off-campus. This law is part of an effort by the city to enforce a zoning ordinance that allows no more than four unrelated people to live together in a single apartment. Medford has a similar law with a maximum of three unrelated people per dwelling. If this law goes into effect, it could increase the demand for four- and three-person apartments, and subsequently increase rent prices for those units. Additionally, the law increases pressure on the university to provide more on-campus housing options for students. Tufts has indicated a desire to provide more on-campus housing; however, it must make sure it does so in a responsible way that doesn’t negatively impact the Somerville and Medford communities. Tufts should try to utilize its existing property and work with the city if property purchases seem necessary, in order to diminish its negative impact on the surrounding communities.

Within the past two years, Tufts has also made multiple efforts to expand its campus and purchase properties in Somerville. First, in August 2013, it was announced that Tufts had been selected to develop the Powder House Community School on Broadway at the intersection of Packard Avenue. The site is particularly valuable to Tufts because it is adjacent to the existing Tufts Administrative Building (TAB) on Holland Avenue. According to a March 2014 article from The Somerville Journal, the university had hoped to purchase the property for $2.7 million dollars so it could demolish the existing building and construct an office complex and a small residential building. In March 2014, after some planning sessions, Tufts and the City of Somerville ended negotiations because they failed to agree on a project timeline—Tufts was not planning on developing the property for about 15 years. According to a university official quoted in The Journal article, the inability to meet a reasonable timeline was due to other expenses.

More recently, it was made public that Tufts considered buying a 41-unit apartment building at 119 College Avenue in Powder House Square. As demand for housing and rents rise in Somerville, there has been more pressure for Tufts to provide affordable housing for its students and faculty. This move, however, was unknown to the City of Somerville and subsequently angered some aldermen—members of the city’s legislative branch, with one alderman for each ward and four at large—who feared that if Tufts were to acquire the building, it would exacerbate the existing shortage of affordable housing for Somerville residents. Tufts has since canceled plans to purchase the building because it failed to match up with the city’s housing goals.

These expansion attempts, especially the 119 College Avenue apartment building, have resulted in pushback from some elected officials in the City of Somerville. Most notably, Alderman Vice President Katjana Bellantyne of Ward 7—the westernmost ward of Somerville, close to Tufts—was angered by the move, causing her to call into question the relationship between the city and the university. As a result, the Board of Aldermen is considering a law that would require Tufts to provide the city with a master plan describing all future plans for expansion. Bellantyne believes that the university’s actions in recent years demonstrate a lack of partnership and difference in values.

If Tufts wants to be a less invasive force in the local community, it should consider more avenues for collaboration with and contribution to the city. In addition to the Aldermen’s consideration of a Tufts master plan, local legislators have also fought for increasing Tufts’ payments to the city. Tufts is considered a non-profit, which means that instead of paying real estate taxes on its property, it pays a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT). Interestingly, Tufts does not call its payment a PILOT and there is no record of the term on Tufts’ websites. In general, a PILOT is justified because the city provides street cleaning, snow removal, police protection, firefighters, and other services that the university uses but does not pay property taxes for.

There is no standard formula for how much a non-profit must pay toward its PILOT. In the past, Somerville representatives have tried to make PILOTs mandatory for all institutions of private education, but the bill did not pass. According to Somerville Neighborhood News (SNN)—a Somerville Community Access Television (SCATV) production—Tufts owns about $286 million dollars of tax-exempt property in Somerville, and if it had to pay taxes, it would owe the City $5.8 million dollars in 2014.  In 2013, Tufts announced a new five-year agreement with the city of Somerville under which it will pay the city $275,000 per year, which is $100,000 more than 2012. While this may seem like a huge increase, it is less than five percent of what Tufts would owe if it paid property taxes. In Boston, a task force determined how much a non-profit should pay the cities in which it operates. This task force recommended that all non-profits should pay 25 percent of what they would pay if they were property taxable, which includes services provided by the institutions into that percentage. If Tufts paid this full 25 percent, it would have paid the city of Somerville $1.4 million dollars in 2014.

While Tufts benefits from city services, the GLX, local housing stock, and other community resources, it is coming up short in contributing back to its host neighborhoods. It does provide local benefits like library access, fields for community use, community service projects, and reduced application fees for Somerville High School students. However, its primary objective of educating students and producing innovative research has wide effects not limited to the local community. It is the local community that must shoulder the cost of the would-be property taxes of Tufts’ occupation.

Since our university’s founding, our establishment and borders have been defined by a history of colonization, slavery, and exploitation. Today, our borders continue to extend into our surrounding neighborhoods as our institutions grow larger and require more space. As Tufts expands, the people who are outside of our borders, and excluded, are negatively affected by our growth and are at risk of being displaced. Tufts is buying local property, forcing students to take up local housing stock, and refusing to pay recommended taxes to the city. Though one could argue that an institution as historically and systemically advantaged as ours can never actually integrate with or benefit our surrounding communities, the least we can do is cause less harm and be less invasive. We as students, and Tufts as an institution, have a shared responsibility to acknowledge our privileged position and work to counteract the negative effects our expansion inevitably creates.

Further reading/viewing:

http://www.mapc.org/sites/default/files/Dimensions_of_Displacement_Final_Draft_2_10_14.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yf1Br6CHgw&index=16&list=PLoFyRgrTeiKhE968tf0MjVMKDI4a3Qr_l

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Gz0pnRBew&index=2&list=PLoFyRgrTeiKhE968tf0MjVMKDI4a3Qr_l

http://tuftsdaily.com/features/2014/11/09/somerville-responds-affordable-housing-crisis-urges-tufts-build-campus-housing/

http://www.thesomervilletimes.com/archives/45151