Rebecca Bratspies

Rebecca Bratspies is the inaugural Oliver Houck Professor of Environmental Law at Tulane University. A scholar of property law, environmental justice, and human rights, Rebecca has written scores of law review articles. Her most recent book Teaching Environmental Law is expected to be published in 2025. Her co-authored textbook Environmental Justice: Law Policy and Regulation is now in its fourth edition. Her history book Naming Gotham: The Villains, Rogues and Heroes Behind New York Place Names won the New York Public Historians 2023 award for Excellence in Local History, the 2024 American Legacy Award for US History, and the 2024 NYC Big Book Award for Local History.

Bratspies is best known for The Environmental Justice Chronicles—her environmental-justice comic books series made in collaboration with artist Charlie LaGreca-Velasco. EPA recognized this work with its 2023 Clean Air Act Award for Excellence in Education. The trilogy of books, Mayah’s Lot, Bina’s Plant, and Troop’s Run, have been used in classrooms across the country, featured in the Bobby Ireland Comic Museum,  and adopted into Chicago’s public school curriculum. Her new graphic novella The Earth Defenders (a collaboration with the United Nations Environmental Programme) shines a spotlight on the dangers that environmental defenders face around the world. 

ABA-SEER honored Bratspies’s work with its 2021 Commitment to Diversity and Justice Award. She was named the Center for International Sustainable Development Law’s 2022 International Legal Specialist for Human Rights Award, and her environmental justice advocacy has been awarded the PSC-CUNY “In It Together” Award, and the Eastern’ Queens Alliance’s Snowy Egret Award. 

Before joining Tulane, Bratspies was a Professor at CUNY School of Law, where she was the founding director of the Center for Urban Environmental Reform. She served as an appointed member of New York City’s Environmental Justice Advisory Board, is a board member of the Center for Progressive Reform and the Environmental Law Collective. She served two terms on EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, and is a past president of the AALS Environmental Section In 1994-95, Rebecca was a Luce Scholar seconded to the Republic of China Environmental Protection Administration in Taipei, Taiwan. Before that, she served as a law clerk to the Hon. C. Arlen Beam on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a J.D. cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in Biology from Wesleyan University.