South Camden Citizens in Action v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) (defendant) issued an air pollution permit to St. Lawrence Cement Company (defendant) to build a ground-granulated-blast-furnace-slag grinding facility on its site in the Waterfront South area of Camden, New Jersey, a type of hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facility (TSD). South Camden Citizens in Action (SCCA) (plaintiff) sued, arguing the permit created a disparate racial impact in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and that SCCA had the right to bring a private action to enforce Title VI under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. SCCA alleged the permit issuance amounted to disparate-impact discrimination because Waterfront South, an economically disadvantaged area largely comprised of minorities, already had 20 percent of Camden’s contaminated sites and facilities holding air-pollution permits. Specifically, SCCA argued the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) administrative regulation prohibiting disparate-impact discrimination was promulgated in accordance with Title VI and that the EPA regulation therefore created a federal right enforceable through Section 1983. The district court granted SCCA a preliminary injunction and remanded the case to NJDEP for a Title VI analysis, ruling the SCCA had a private right of action under Section 1983 to enforce the EPA’s disparate-impact discrimination prohibition as an implementation of Title VI. NJDEP and St. Lawrence appealed.