Luke Cole Memorial Fellowship

To learn more about the importance of the Fellowship and Luke's impact on his friends, family and collegues please read our June 2012 Newsletter which features a collection of personal stories from those touched by Luke.

For National Environmental Justice Legal Advocacy

The Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment (CRPE) is launching a memorial fellowship to honor our founder Luke W. Cole. Luke made training the next generation of lawyers a priority as he led CRPE, and it remains a goal of the organization. CRPE will mentor Luke Cole Fellows to take on national environmental justice issues – in the style Luke pioneered – as community advocates and high–impact litigators. This fellowship offers a unique opportunity for new lawyers to practice the key principles of environmental justice lawyering Luke defined in his career:

1. Communities speak for themselves
2. Equitable systemic change comes from the ground up
3. Lawyers should be on tap, not on top

(Photo: Ralph Abascal and Luke Cole, Co-Founders of CRPE)

CRPE's Founding

In 1989, Luke was looking for a way to practice both poverty law and environmental law. Legal aid organizations sent him to environmental organizations. Environmental organizations sent him to legal aid organizations. No one was doing environmental law on behalf of poor people. But Luke found Ralph Abascal of California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., who understood that poor people and people of color bear the brunt of environmental problems, and recognized the powerful intersection of environmental and poverty law. Ralph offered Luke a phone and a desk and together they created the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment.

Luke Cole's National Advocacy

Luke represented communities throughout the country. From rural California to Kivalina, Alaska, Luke set legal precedent by identifying the shared struggle of poor people and communities of color to live in healthy physical environments. He shared lessons from community-led campaigns in publications, courtrooms and classrooms, influencing a generation of social justice advocates.

Friday March 9th CRPE, Ralph Nader and chief of Cal/OSHA Ellen Widess hosted a luncheon to promote the Fellowship. Ralph Nader was Luke's first employer out of Harvard Law School at The Center for Study of Responsive Law. Mr. Nader spoke about Luke's passion and joy.

CRPE Today

CRPE's success today speaks to our strong mentoring tradition, and we are proud to share Luke's passion, principles and tactics, through mentorship, with the Luke Cole Fellows. Since 2009, CRPE has built upon Luke's visionary work, including:

• Winning the AB32 Climate Change case – which Luke referred to as "the most important EJ case of our time."
• Publishing the first CRPE policy paper based on a community vision of green development.
• Representing Kettleman City residents in their continuing struggle against a toxic waste dump expansion.
• Advocating on behalf of the community of Kivalina, Alaska in requiring the 24 largest U.S. greenhouse gas emitters to pay for their substantial contribution to climate change and the resulting harm to this Inupiat village on the northwest coast.
• Requiring the US EPA's Office of Civil Rights to act on their 16-year-old Title VI Complaint regarding California's practice of locating toxic waste dumps in low-income communities and communities of color.

"Never has there been a time when we more desperately needed bright, idealistic young activists to enter the poverty law field and reinvigorate it."    –Luke Cole

Our Vision for the Fellowship

The Luke Cole Memorial Fellowship will be a two-year fellowship position at the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment for a recent law school graduate. The Fellow will work closely with CRPE's Executive Director Caroline Farrell and General Counsel Brent Newell, who themselves were mentored by Luke. The Fellows will work on CRPE's National Campaign and will focus on the three main strategies Luke successfully employed as a national leader in the Environmental Justice Movement:

1. Community Advocacy: CRPE receives requests for assistance in fighting environmental threats from communities across the nation. The Fellow will work with these community groups to write comment letters, testify at hearings and liaise with resource agencies. The Fellow will also collaborate with environmental justice groups to advocate for national environmental justice policies at the federal level.
2. High-Impact Litigation: The Fellow will represent community groups throughout the country on matters ranging from the siting of toxic facilities, climate change, and restoring civil rights.
3. Movement Theory: The Fellow will write and publish pieces based on lessons learned through CRPE's work with community groups and allies, speak at conferences and contribute to the theoretical underpinnings of the practice of environmental justice law.

The Luke Cole Memorial Fellowship will provide a strong national voice in the environmental justice movement, amplifying not only CRPE's impact across the nation, but also adding a full-time advocate to this growing movement.

Our immediate objective is to raise $150,000 to fund two years of salary and benefits for the first Luke Cole Fellow. Looking ahead, we will continue to seek funding for the fellowship to ensure Luke's lasting legacy.

Giving Opportunities

Contributions to the Luke Cole Memorial Fellowship Fund may be made by sending a check to the following address. For more information contact: Lauren Richter, Development Director Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment 47 Kearny Street, Suite 804 San Francisco, CA 94108 415-346-4179 x 300 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it To make your donation "social" give to our new online fundraiser via Facebook Causes.