AU Washington College of Law Student Wins Environmental Justice Community Lawyering Fellowship
April 21, 2021
Second year law student Dominique Rolle is the inaugural winner of the American University Washington College of Law Program on Environmental and Energy Law (PEEL) Environmental Justice Community Lawyering Fellowship Award. This Fellowship aims to energize the next generation of PEEL community lawyers to identify equitable solutions to pressing environmental challenges that disproportionately affect low-income communities and communities of color.
Rolle will spend part of the next two semesters working with the U.S. Climate Action Network (including the Arm in Arm Network) to develop legal strategies and protections for climate activists seeking to promote change in the way the United States makes and distributes energy. She will also work with a coalition of law schools, including the AU Washington College of Law, to publish a Fifth Edition Report entitled “Environmental Justice for All: A Fifty State Survey of Legislation, Policies, and Cases,” which is a compilation of environmental justice laws and policies in the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and other territories.
“We are extremely proud of Dominique, and very grateful to our alumni and friends who helped support this new Fellowship,” said AUWCL Professor Bill Snape, co-director of the Program on Environmental and Energy Law. “Dominique’s Fellowship work will directly benefit front-line advocates fighting for environmental justice, climate justice, and energy justice.”
“I am grateful for this opportunity, and I am excited to get to work on behalf of overburdened communities across the United States,” said Rolle. “Thank you to the U.S. Climate Action Network for allowing me to join it in its fight against the climate crisis and unjust energy policies, which disproportionately impact BIPOC communities. I would also like to thank PEEL for continuing to support my environmental justice work.”
Learn more about the Fellowship here.
About the Program on Environmental and Energy Law
American University Washington College of Law’s Program on Environmental and Energy Law (PEEL) provides an education that is interdisciplinary and inclusive, in which lessons foster passion for the natural world as well as cultivate legal excellence, cultural competency, and global awareness. The Program’s faculty, staff, adjuncts, and alumni are easily accessible as mentors, to equip and inspire the next generation of lawyers to identify equitable solutions to pressing environmental and energy challenges. The curriculum and our many program events provide students with a thorough grounding in domestic environmental, energy, and natural resources law, international and comparative environmental and energy law, environmental and climate justice, and animal law.