Extending environmental justice research to religious minorities

Abstract

For more than 30 years, significant research in the United States has found that racial and ethnic minorities suffer disproportionately from nearness to environmental disamenities compared with white non‐Hispanics and that these results persist even controlling for poverty and “which came first,” the minorities or the disamenities. The engrained discriminatory findings of this environmental justice (EJ) research have led some to argue that we observe “systemic racism,” built into our social systems in ways that may be difficult to perceive. Yet, within the history of the United States, racial and ethnic minorities are not the only groups that have been systematically discriminated against; various religious groups also have histories of discrimination. Here we consider whether, holding constant race and ethnicity, some religious groups may also suffer from “EJ syndrome.” Since the US Census does not collect data on religion, to measure the presence of some religious groups that may be discriminated against, we use an original dataset on the presence of Jewish, Muslim, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐day Saints (LDS, aka Mormon), and Roman Catholic houses of worship within California's Census tracts. Our results indicate that even controlling for race/ethnicity and income, the presence of Jewish or Muslim houses of worship in a California Census tract increases the likelihood of environmental burden as measured by the CalEnviroScreen 3.0 index of pollution and community vulnerability.

Minority faith and environmental justice

“…This study is an extension of an article that was written by Al‐Kohlani and Campbell (2021) and that examined the question of whether findings from the EJ literature focusing on census‐measured racial and ethnic minorities can be extended to non‐measured religious minorities. Their research was limited to California, while this analysis covers the entire contiguous United States.…”

“…Third, Al‐Kohlani and Campbell (2021) found evidence of religion‐based environmental injustice in the state of California. Studying several religious groups that may be discriminated against in the U.S. context—Jews, Muslims, Latter‐Day Saints (LDS, often known as “Mormons”), and Catholics—their research finds that the presence of Jewish and Muslim HOWs is correlated with higher CalEnviroScreen scores; such higher scores indicate that communities are a combination of more polluted geographies with residents who are more susceptible to pollution.…”

“…The research presented here builds on Al‐Kohlani and Campbell (2021). It extends that work to the entire contiguous United States, using 2014 National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) data from the U.S. EPA's EJSCREEN database; U.S. Census tract data on race, ethnicity, density, income, and other factors that may affect political influence; and location data on Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist or Hindu HOWs.…”

“…Most similar to our approach in this article is an analysis of the state of California by Al‐Kohlani and Campbell (2021). This study used an original dataset on Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, and LDS HOWs and found “that even controlling for race/ethnicity and income, the presence of Jewish or Muslim HOWs in a California census tract increases the likelihood of environmental burden as measured by the CalEnviroScreen 3.0 index of pollution and community vulnerability” (Al‐Kohlani & Campbell, 2021, p. 90). As with Collins and Grineski (2019), they did not find evidence of higher CalEnviroScreen scores associated with LDS HOWs, and, like Smiley (2019), they did not find an effect for Catholic HOWs.…”

“…However, Al‐Kohlani and Campbell (2021) argue that the presence of a HOW, a visible symbol of its religion, focuses discriminatory intent. As previously evidenced, HOWs are explicitly attacked, including bombings, burnings, and defacements.…”