About the Mickey Leland Center

The Mickey Leland Center at Texas Southern University (TSU)

is a university-community hub advancing environmental justice, health equity, and sustainability through education, research, and community engagement. The Center focuses on communities most at risk, combining academic expertise with grassroots knowledge to develop responsive solutions.

The center provides technical support to community groups impacted by environmental hazards, connecting them with legal, scientific, and policy resources. It synthesizes interdisciplinary research spanning public health, urban planning, law, and environmental science to tackle systemic inequities. The Center’s four pillars are:

1. Education and Training

2. Research and Policy Analysis

3. Community Engagement and Technical Support

4. Information Clearinghouse

As an HBCU-based center, the Mickey Leland Center has a strong legacy of service to people of color and low-income communities. Though not an organizing body, the Center supports community-based organizations (CBOs) with research and resources when invited.

Environmental justice has evolved into a national movement, bridging race, class, and geography. Legal and civil rights groups now collaborate on environmental cases, and universities offer dedicated EJ programs. Yet, disparities persist—over half of those living near hazardous waste sites are people of color.

The center helped lead the 2007 Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty study, reaffirming race as a primary predictor of hazardous waste siting. Environmental justice remains as urgent today as it was decades ago.

Climate change now compounds environmental injustice, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities through pollution, extreme weather, and health crises. The Center remains committed to amplifying marginalized voices and fostering solutions rooted in equity and justice locally, nationally, and globally.