
Environmental advocates are questioning the actions of a private university in Louisiana after the resignation of a scientist who researches the health and job disparities in a heavily industrialized part of the state known as Cancer Alley.
Kimberly Terrell served as a director of community engagement and a staff scientist with Tulane University’s Environmental Law Clinic before resigning and accused university leaders of trying to censor the work she is doing to spotlight the harms to local communities plagued by industrial pollution.
Terrell said her research in collaboration with Floodlight highlighting job disparities in hiring at local petrochemical facilities triggered a backlash from state and Tulane leaders. That led to Terrell being put under an “‘unprecedented gag order” by the dean of the university’s law school, she said in a prepared statement issued by a group calling itself the Louisiana Alliance to Defend Democracy.