UT Law Professor Presents Research to USF Faculty

Gerald Torres, professor of law at the University of Texas, spoke at USF on Nov. 7.

Torres’s current research is inspired by his interest in American Indian law and explores “the relationship between citizenship, sovereignty, and human rights and how they interact to create a structure for inclusion or exclusion,” he said.

The Centennial Faculty Scholarship Workshop Series brings distinguished scholars from across the nation to present research exploring diverse legal issues. The series includes presentations by Yale Law School Professors Vicki Schultz and Scott Shapiro, Stanford Law School Professor Deborah Rhode, Columbia Law School Professor Patricia Williams, and others. Several of USF’s own faculty are also slated to present as part of the series.

In addition to the faculty presentation, Torres delivered a lecture to students titled “Justice is the DNA of Environmental Law.” During his talk, he explored the critical role of the environmental justice movement in bringing questions of racial and social justice into environmental law. He described a failure of traditional, elite-driven environmental groups to pass federal climate change legislation.

“If you don’t build a movement, you don’t build durable change, and that’s why the environmental movement needs the environmental justice movement,” he said.