This week our class had Kristin Saunders from the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) come and discuss the efforts that the program has made to increase Diversity, Equity, Justice, and Inclusion (DEJI). Sanders began the class by acknowledging that the Clean Water Act (CWA) authorized the creation of the Chesapeake Bay Program. The CBP generated 10 goals for the 2014 Watershed Agreement, and improving diversity outcomes is part of the stewardship goal. Sanders also noted that when the agreement was being drafted there was a large debate about whether climate change and diversity should be addressed at all within the document. Part of this gridlock can be attributed to the complex system of partnership members that make up the CBP. These members include the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a variety of other federal and state partners.

Fast forward to 2021, the CBP has had no problem addressing the need to increase the conversations about diversity and climate change. Although this program has been described as complex, I would say that it is critically lacking in some of the most foundational components for engaging with underserved communities in the Chesapeake Bay community: stakeholder engagement. For such a complex organization, it is a shame that the lack of stakeholder engagement in the development of their DEJI action plan was allowed to continue and go unchecked. Like many other predominantly white environmental organizations, the Chesapeake Bay Program has lacked representation in its leadership and membership while simultaneously underservering the diverse needs of communities of color and low-income communities. In her 2015 paper, Dr. Dorceta E. Taylor notes that in 1990 people of color represented less than 2% of the membership in the top four environmental organizations. In 2014, people of color accounted for approximately 12% of the staff in government environmental agencies.

The members of the CBP acknowledge that they have underserved communities in the Chesapeake Bay area, but the development of a DEJI action plan that included little to no meaningful input from the communities that would be the beneficiaries of this plan is an oversight that cannot go unaddressed. How can this plan be equitable when community members are only asked for input on the action plan after it has been entirely developed? Should this form of engagement even be considered “meaningful” or is it just merely a continuation of the system of engagement that has abandoned these communities in the first place? Arnstein (1969) describes citizen participation as “the redistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future.” One could hardly describe the lack of inclusion in the initial creation of the DEJI action plan as a meaningful way to distribute power back into the communities that have been overlooked and underserved by the CBP. Arnstein describes eight levels of engagement: Manipulation → Therapy → Informing → Consultation → Placation → Partnership → Delegated Power → Citizen Control. I would describe the action of the CBP as “Consultation” at best. Arnstein notes that “the most frequent methods used for consulting people are attitude surveys, neighborhood meetings, and public hearings'' and that “this rung of the ladder is still a sham since it offers no assurance that citizen concerns and ideas will be taken into account.” Given that, for a certain time period, the CBP will be allowing for public comment on the action plan that has already been developed, and that there is no guarantee the comments made during the public comment period will actually be used used to revise the action plan, it makes sense that the actions of the CBP are seen as “consultation.” It is also important to note that the phase of consultation is considered to be a degree of tokenism. Tokenism is defined as “the practice of doing something (such as hiring a person who belongs to a minority group) only to prevent criticism and give the appearance that people are being treated fairly” (Sherrer, 2018).

One of the key remarks made in the class was that the CBP needs to be held accountable for the lack of interest in increasing diversity in previous years of the program's existence. The question I consistently ask myself when I see actions like those of the CBP is “why now?” Why didn’t you care about diversity and inclusion before 2014? My Black life has ALWAYS mattered so why is it that you only acknowledge that #BlackLivesMatter when it's a trending topic on twitter?

The CBP has made an effort to acknowledge that there needs to be an increase in diversity and inclusion, but performative acts that lack actual inclusion of the underserved is not the way to move forward. What we should do is defund the CBP who has long since abandoned communities of color and low-income communities in the Chesapeake Bay area. These funds should then be redistributed to the local environmental organizations who have been doing the work the CBP refused to, the organizations who cared about the underserved communities before the terms “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” became trending topics and buzz words.

If the CBP wants to have any form of meaningful diversity and inclusion, then there must be conscious efforts at all stages of development. Hire contractors from the communities that you’ve abandoned! Provide reparations for the communities that you underserved when you were providing services to those with privilege. Restructure your leadership team to be composed of diverse people other than just white men and women. Reach out to communities of color and low-income communities in the Chesapeake area and ask them what resources your program can provide. Think critically about the role that your organization has played in promoting racist, sexist, capitalist, ableist, facist, imperialist, and colonialist ideas about nature and the environmental movement.

References

Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35(4), 216-224. doi:10.1080/01944366908977225.

Sherrer, K. (2020, June 22). What is tokenism, and why does it matter in the workplace? Retrieved from https://business.vanderbilt.edu/news/2018/02/26/tokenism-in-the-workplace/

Taylor, D. E. (2015). Gender and racial diversity in environmental organizations: Uneven accomplishments and cause for concern. Environmental Justice, 8(5), 165-180. doi:10.1089/env.2015.0018.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views and opinions of the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, or any other institution or organization upon which the author is affiliated with.