Editors: Drs. Michelle Larkins, Fort Lewis College and Ajay S. Singh, Sacramento State University 

In recent years, the U.S. has experienced collective raised awareness of racism and injustice at the hands of individuals, institutions, and governmental bodies. This raised awareness of violent and non-violent racism has generated self-reflection of how racial groups have been disproportionately disenfranchised and oppressed from engaging in economic and political activities. The environmental movement and community is grappling with its own racist past as discussed in Dorceta Taylor’s “Rise of the American Conservation Movement” and Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s “As Long as the Grass Grows”. As an academic field, we have the responsibility to not only acknowledge racism in our past but also our present. We must, as a discipline and a community, discuss how we will address environmental racism at our institutions and train our students to be aware of issues and provide them with approaches to addressing environmental racism.  

If we are to think of ourselves as inclusive, as equitable, and diverse, we must take concrete steps toward that end. We are accepting abstracts for a special issue of the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences to continue the conversation about how environmentally-focused disciplines can and are addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the classroom, departments, and within the environmental profession. This special issue will explore what we can do as professors, administrators, and as departments to increase DEI at our institutions and within the environmental community. This special issue will call for manuscripts which address: 

• A systematic literature review of DEI efforts and practices in environmental science, studies, and related fields; 
• Develop data tracking progress and state of DEI at academic institutions, including methods for tracking; 
• How to meaningfully address DEI and environmental racism in our work, our classroom, and our departments;  
• Exploration and reflection on the use/integration of compassionate, inclusive, Indigenous, anti-racist, and other critical pedagogies; and 
• Case studies of successful recruitment and retention of under-represented students. 

Those interested in contributing to the special issue must submit a 250-word abstract to Singh@csus.edu by 10/3/2022 with the subject line “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Environmental Studies and Sciences Special issue”. Final manuscripts will be due by 4/24/2023, conform to the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences submission guidelines, and be reviewed by the special issue editors and anonymous reviewers.