Stand Up For Science

This speech was given by Dr. Dani Lin Hunter, NCEJN Research and Education Manager at Halifax Mall in Raleigh, NC on March 8, 2025 as part of the Stand Up for Science Protest

We work with environmental justice communities across the state to help them build capacity to address their advocacy goals. Environmental injustice occurs when lower income communities of color face the brunt of environmental pollution. For example, the largest landfill in our state is in a majority Black community and Latine farmworkers face exposure to heat, pesticides, and poor living conditions. This unjust burden is the direct result of environmental racism in our permitting, zoning, housing, and labor policies and racial capitalism that prioritizes industry profits over Black and Brown lives. 

Science has played an integral role in supporting environmental justice communities in their fights for justice by documenting that injustice is occurring. This has supported communities in three ways: 

1. Science helps validate the experiences of communities that are gaslit by industry and regulators. At the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, we work with communities who know that they are getting sick at rates that aren’t normal. And yet, the companies and facilities that are in their backyards are telling them that everything is safe. And the regulating bodies in our state like the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality that are supposed to protect them at best turn a blind eye and at worst allow industries to dictate what safe means. This is where researchers, many of whom are dependent on federal funding, have stepped in to test soil, water, air, and human health to provide analyses that validate that these communities are living with contamination. 

2. Science also helps communities make more informed decisions by accessing data about their local environment. Did you know that under the Clean Air Act, federal air monitors are actually purposefully placed away from the polluting facilities in environmental justice communities? The stated reason for this is that federal reference monitors are meant to provide regional estimates of air quality, and placing them near polluting facilities would skew regional models. In reality this is a tangible example of environmental racism in our policies that says that air quality measurements can be less accurate where Black and Brown people live. As a result, they may not have access to local data about how to protect themselves. This is another place where scientists have helped to support communities. They help measure air quality, drinking water quality, the suitability of soil for gardening and so much more and have developed dashboards to help make this data more easily accessible to communities. 

3. Science helps hold polluting industries accountable to the harm they impose on environmental justice communities. For example, landmark lawsuits against industrial hog operations helped residents of eastern North Carolina living nearby receive payment for the odor that came from having their homes sprayed with hog feces and urine. This victory was largely due to the grassroots organizing of hundreds of residents in southeastern North Carolina and was supported by expert testimony from the scientists who helped them document health effects and were fiercely committed to protecting communities. In short, science helps communities achieve justice. 

The environmental justice communities in North Carolina, and all of us who support justice, need science to more powerfully address environmental racism and racial capitalism. Therefore, we stand with the scientists and unjustly fired federal workers here today who are fighting for their rights to do their work and do it well. 

1. We demand an immediate end to censorship and political interference in science.
   • Restricting funding based on topic areas further entrenches systemic disinvestment, cutting off vital federal support from the communities that need it most.
   • Stripping critical health resources from the CDC website deprives those already facing higher risks of cancer, low birth weights, and premature death of the life-saving information they deserve.

2. We demand secure and expanded scientific funding.
   • Slashing budgets denies communities access to critical data on air, water, and soil quality—data essential for protecting public health.
     • Cutting cancer research funding limits life-saving treatments, endangering those who need them most.
     • Gutting climate change research strips away vital strategies to defend against hurricanes, wildfires, and other escalating disasters.
     • And defunding engineering research means losing groundbreaking solutions to remove toxic contaminants from drinking water, putting lives at risk.
   • In wrongfully firing federal workers, our allies have been unjustly terminated. They should be rehired and receive back pay and full  benefits. 
   • Our partners at universities cannot operate with a 15% cap in indirect for NIH-funded grants. 

3. Finally, we demand that diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in science be defended.
   • Many of the researchers that partner with us are from environmental justice communities and/or hold diverse identities. They need to be protected from discrimination in their workplaces. 
   • Anti-DEIA policies make it harder for our partners to work with us to support environmental justice communities because of our mission to fight racism. 

I’ll end with a plea to all of the researchers here today. I hear your rage. I feel your rage. The relentless attacks on science are not abstract. They are deeply personal. They are affecting you and your loved ones. They are also affecting me and my loved ones. I share your rage. My plea for you is to remember that rage when you obtain justice. Because I do believe, perhaps naively, but fiercely, that justice will come for you. 

The environmental justice communities we stand with have been fighting for their very survival for decades. Even when they win, the system finds new ways to strip that victory away. The lawsuits won by residents near industrial hog operations? The North Carolina General Assembly responded by making it illegal to sue agricultural companies under nuisance law. The communities we work with are still seeking justice even though the environmental justice movement nationwide started in our state in 1982. 

The simple reality is that it is easier to overturn executive orders than the systemic racist and capitalistic policies that are embedded in our society. When these executive orders are overturned and you receive justice, remember the rage of environmental justice communities. We stand with you now because our struggles are linked. We ask that you stand with us and with environmental justice communities then too. The environmental justice movement doesn’t just need science; it needs brave researchers who are willing to stand with us. Join us.