ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the recent history of attempts by the environmental justice movement in the United States to engage constitutional equal protection provisions. It discusses the jurisprudential position that has emerged in relation to environmental justice cases. Environmental justice is, at heart, a question of social equity, but one that highlights one of the negative consequences of democratic society run on capitalist principles. One can understand why environmental justice case law in the United States has evolved in favor of a requirement for nothing less than intentional racism before a private law remedy becomes available. Kang and Banaji, enthusiastically take up Linda Krieger's lead and embrace social cognition theory as a true reflection of the realities of bias and its role in decision-making. The essence of system justification theory (SJT) is the idea that those in more powerful positions in the social hierarchy subconsciously seek to maintain the status quo such that their place in the hierarchy is not threatened.
