"The Green Line is coming!" announced several posters around campus. Groups of students traversed the campus holding posters with lines of poetry on the mixed effects of the Green Line extension on the Somerville community, talking to interested and admitted students as they marched. "The green line is coming, but riders beware," one read. "What works best for you is not always fair."
On Thursday in the campus center, the members of the "Environmental Justice and U.S. Literature" English class turned out in green shirts and formed their own "green line" through the center of Tufts. They began a group social-action project focusing on the intersections of environmental justice in the Tufts community. The central issues were the impending arrival of the Green Line in Somerville and the implications this will have on Tufts and the surrounding areas. On a broader scale, the aim was to raise awareness among Tufts students about what the environmental justice movement is (a political struggle for equality and fairness for all people in terms of environmental hazards and benefits) and how it relates to issues that affect all of us. It is really important that we as Tufts students become familiar with this term, as it holds the most potential for the future of the evolving environmental movement. Increasingly, grassroots organizations are raising awareness about the need to remedy injustices relating to access to our environment and exposure to environmental hazards with adverse health effects.
The Green Line is an environmental justice issue because it raises the possibility of pricing longtime residents out of their homes and increasing T fare; it may fail to incorporate community input in the execution of events which adversely affect disempowered or low-income communities. People are central components of our environment, and they need to be the center of focus when examining the pros and cons of many development proposals. Transportation inequality can also become an issue if the extension mainly benefits Tufts and not the entire community.
The event in the campus center featured baked goods distributed for a suggested donation among posters and pamphlets bearing pros and cons related to the Green Line. The donations will go to a local organization such as Groundwork Somerville, which is involved in community social activism. The main goal was to raise awareness and educate students on the fact that the Green Line is a more complex issue than it appears. Yes, it will add a T stop conveniently right on campus, so what's not to love for Tufts students? However, we need to take the interests of our surrounding community into account, as the reaction in Somerville is mixed. The gentrification and takeover of community land is not a fair price to pay for some.
Many students stopped and expressed interest in learning about the Green Line debates and received pamphlets along with "Green Line" cupcakes for their time. Common questions asked of students were "How do you feel about the Green Line?" "Are you in favor of it?" and "Is it good or bad?" As a class, we abstained from giving our opinions, as we hoped to present the facts from both sides and allow students to form their own opinions. Once they are informed about the effects on the community, both positive and negative, they will not only be more considerate of those with whom we share a community but, like me, become less ignorant about how the Green Line extension can cause so much debate and controversy. This is the case with any development project, but we need to establish a precedent for just social interaction with our community by taking what they have to say about the Green Line into account. Our reputation for active citizenship in social justice issues means that we as Tufts students have an obligation to be well-informed about environmental justice and proposed solutions in our backyard. We can go a long way toward improving our image as an institution if we take a leading role in educating our students on environmental justice; the class action project hoped to begin this dialogue.
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Laney Siegner is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. She is a student in the course "Environmental Justice and U.S. Literature."
