28th annual Tulane Environmental Law & Policy Summit opens Friday

The 28th Annual Tulane Environmental Law & Policy Summit, on Friday, March 17th and Saturday, March 18th, is giving a platform to “unconventional voices.”

The Summit, the longest ongoing student-run environmental law conference in the country, will honor that theme with a keynote address on Friday at 5:30 p.m. by Ryan RedCorn, a photographer, filmmaker and writer of the FX on Hulu series Reservation Dogs. RedCorn has been an outspoken supporter of indigenous issues, and for better treatment of indigenous people – his bio can be found here.

In addition to the keynote address, more than a dozen panels will discuss complex environmental issues. Panelists will examine climate change, mitigation-focused initiatives, environmental injustice, and other social issues as well as emerging legal matters around water management and PFAS litigation. Illustrating this year’s theme of “unconventional voices”, one panel at noon on Friday in Room 157 is entitled “Exploring Tribal Law Approaches to Environmental Stewardship and Regulation within Federal Law.”

This two-day event is free and open to the public, and CLE credit is available. Attendees can also tune-in via Zoom – more details on registration can be found here.

Several Tulane Law professors will be speaking, including Mark Davis, director of both the Tulane Center for Environmental Law and the Institute on Water Resources Law & Policy, environmental law Professors Adam Babich and Christopher Dalbom, and others. Tulane Law students will join in moderating panels throughout the weekend. The “Urban Vegetation” panel at 4 p.m. on Friday in Room 157 will feature the growing legal initiative at Tulane on Vegetation Management, led by alumnus Lawrence Kahn (L’95) who is a Senior Research Fellow at the Tulane Center for Environmental Law.

Additionally, Tulane Environmental Law Clinic professors and researchers are presenting on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. in Room 110 on a panel entitled “Cancer Alley Cases”. This panel will explore litigation in the area of southern Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley.” Devin Lowell (Clinical Assistant Professor of Law), Dr. Kimberly Terrell (Director of Community Outreach), Zoe Vogel (Student Attorney), and Gianna St. Julien (Clinical Research Coordinator) will speak on their research as it relates to clients in the region. Terrell and St. Julien released a study last year that showed predominantly Black communities in the state suffered disproportionately from greater industrial pollution.

For more information on the Summit, click here.