ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a comprehensive understanding of the failure of the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to recognize and remediate environmental discrimination. It identifies several possible explanations of the OCR failure to ensure environmental justice that are the burden of proof for discrimination in the statutory law may simply be too high, there may be a problematic agency culture within the OCR. It suggests that the OCR failure may be a symptom of institutionalized racism that is perpetuated through administrative evil. The chapter explores the dimensions of public management that may be working to hinder the ability of OCR to fulfill its mandate to address environmental injustices and what other policy-driven entities can learn from the lessons to improve the social justice implications of environmental policymaking. The chapter concludes with the elevation of environmental justice as an issue of primary importance to the environmental protection agencies.
