We discuss “Cancer Alley,” an 85-mile stretch between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that contains one of the largest concentrations of fossil fuel and petrochemical operations in the Western Hemisphere. These facilities expose nearby residents, who are disproportionately Black, to toxic pollutants and “severe health harms including elevated burdens and risks of cancer, reproductive, maternal, and newborn health harms, respiratory ailments.”

Louisiana and the federal government have long failed to remedy these harms. In 2022, local community groups filed multiple complaints with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that alleged Louisiana’s failure to address these harms violated Title VI by “subjecting Black residents to ongoing disproportionate and adverse health and environmental impacts.”
These complaints prompted the EPA to investigate. In response, Louisiana sued the federal government. The state argued that it was unlawful for the EPA or the Department of Justice to enforce Title VI’s “disparate impact” regulations. Why? Because doing so forces the state to consider race. According to Louisiana, having to consider a policy’s racial impact is just another form of racial discrimination. If that sounds familiar, it might be because it also appears in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s playbook for a Trump presidency.

A Trump-appointed judge recently sided with Louisiana. To justify a ruling that deprives Cancer Alley’s residents of legal relief, the judge repeated the claim that attending to racial disparities is itself racist: “The public interest here is that governmental agencies abide by its laws, and treat all of its citizens equally, without considering race. To be sure, if a decision maker has to consider race, to decide, it has indeed participated in racism.”