News Archive

Lead pollution is a crisis not only in Flint, Michigan, but also in Indiana and across the nation. Students, faculty, and alumni of the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law recently have written and published articles on these issues in both the popular press and in scholarly journals.

Professor Emily Benfer, ’05, wrote an article that appeared in the New York Times opinion pages on March 4 noting that lead poisoning is on the rise, particularly among low-income and minority children. Secretary Julian Castro of the Department of Housing and Urban Development tweeted March 7 that his department would be changing housing regulations to protect children from lead poisoning. She is a clinical professor of law and director of the Health Justice Project at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

The issue was the subject of a law review article published in the Indiana Law Review by Professor Carlton Waterhouse and Ravay Smith, ’15, titled “The Lingering Life of Lead Pollution: An Environmental Justice Challenge for Indiana.” The piece appears in Volume 49, Number 1, and it notes that while lead poisoning has been dramatically reduced, minority children continue to have higher rates of elevated blood lead levels than majority children.