Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has long been touted as a mechanism to combat environmental injustice. Federal agencies have interpreted the law to forbid federally funded activities that result in a discriminatory racial effect—or “disparate impact.” In response, practitioners have urged EPA to utilize Title VI’s administrative complaint process to prevent disproportionate environmental burdens on communities of color. The Biden Administration’s EPA initially inspired optimism by pursuing Title VI environmental justice complaints. Yet Title VI has rarely righted race-based environmental wrongs.

While the decline of the administrative state may well extinguish any hope of short-term progress, the Title VI administrative complaint process showed signs of chilling even before President Trump took office. Shortly before the Court’s highly anticipated decision striking down race-conscious college admissions, the Biden EPA abandoned the most prominent Title VI environmental justice enforcement matter to date. Looming in the background was the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority and its cramped view of the Equal Protection Clause to which Title VI is inextricably tethered.

But unless the Supreme Court entirely forecloses use of Title VI in environmental justice claims, the administrative complaint process remains a valuable tool to elevate festering injustices in the public consciousness. To awaken the “sleeping giant” that is Title VI, environmental justice advocates must pair their complaints with more traditional community organizing tools like journalistic activism and lobbying efforts. Frontline communities and their lawyers have little to lose and potentially much to gain by deploying Title VI’s disparate impact regulations as part of a strategic public campaign—at least for as long as the courts allow it