Systemic racism within the United States and historical instances of harm have led to inequitable outcomes that persist within the aviation industry today. Acknowledging and understanding these histories provides opportunities for present-day accountability and interrogation of oppressive systems. This chapter serves as a primer for the reader and a foundation from which to incorporate environmental justice, equity principles, and data into planning and decision-making processes. More detailed information on these topics is provided in the ACRP Web-Only Document 60.

2.1 Historical Context

The research team presents evidence via the ACRP Web-Only Document 60 that describes how the historical and structural origins of inequity, as experienced in the United States, can be traced back to four broad conceptual themes: group-based othering, settler colonialism, economic systems of racial capitalism, and systemic oppression. ACRP Web-Only Document 60 describes each conceptual theme in detail and provides specific examples of how the legacies of these histories manifest in the aviation industry today. This section provides a brief introduction to those conceptual themes.

All work to make transportation more equitable and accessible should be based on a foundational understanding of the history of oppression and the movements for civil rights and mobility justice in the United States. A common understanding ensures that recommendations and strategies are contextually appropriate and prevent further harm. As airports collaborate with community stakeholders, they need to understand how transportation institutions have historically aided or impeded the advancement of civil rights.

2.1.1 Group-Based Othering

A foundational knowledge of the social construction of otherness is critical to understanding how individuals in a society categorize themselves and inadvertently categorize others. Harm from “othering” occurs when social and cultural differences are imposed and then leveraged to establish and reinforce systems of oppression. In the airport context, it is necessary to question who has been “othered” through aviation planning, policymaking, and institutional decision-making.

One of the earliest and most apparent categories of othering is via marking skin color (Canales 2000; Krumer-Nevo and Sidi 2012). Social scientists have noted that darker skin has historically been a pervasive determinant of othering. In the United States, darker skin is, for the most part, synonymous with being identified as Black (the darkest among the spectrum of skin tones) (Jablonski 2021; Eberhardt 2005; Franklin 1969). In addition to darker skin, physical attributes such as hair, facial structure, and body type are also markers that are used to assign Black as an identity. Historical analysis demonstrates that Blackness (and race in general) as a cultural and (later) racial identity is a socially constructed identity.

The tactic of othering has evolved to mark additional variations in skin color (which mainstream discourse in the United States generally refers to as races) and has expanded to mark additional types of differences like disability, gender, dialect, and economic status (Krumer-Nevo and Sidi 2012). Section 2.2 of ACRP Web-Only Document 60 details additional examples of othering that

have been shaped by social constructions related to race, ability, gender, language, and religion. In a transportation context, the process of othering and the social construction of othered identities can impact the mobility, movement, and freedom of those deemed as “other” (Leese and Wittendorp 2017).

2.1.1.1 Racialization

According to Gonzalez-Sobrino and Goss (2021), racialization describes a process that imposes an identity on people over time; it is an experience that finds its premise and rules in society regardless of actual lineage or racial assignment at birth. Othering is the basis from which processes of racialization emerge. Social scientists call this a process of social construction.

It is necessary for airport leaders to understand the relevance of racialization as a process when developing policy and programmatic interventions. Without this understanding, it is unlikely that proposed interventions will be sufficiently responsive to opportunities to fill equity gaps or redress longstanding, systemic oppression. Efforts to understand and root out inequities should not reinforce the constructs and systems of oppression that have been established by othering over time.

Racialized experiences are informed by systemic and social responses to the identity markers that individuals carry. The ways in which identity markers come to be and are defined are inconsistent and unreliable in terms of factual, measurable realities; yet those identity markers create dominant ideals that inform how society, institutions, and communities are constructed and governed. Racial categories, in many ways, define how an individual experiences every aspect of their life (Blascovich et al. 1997).

The process of racialization has been reproduced and extended throughout American history by the persistent concept that whiteness is an ideal state of personhood. White supremacy is a system of exploitation and oppression that maintains power over racialized people. White supremacy leverages processes of othering to establish a false sense of homogeneity, which purports there are two classes of humanity: White people and everyone else (Morris 2016). Processes of racialization both derive from and reproduce White supremacy culture. While contemporary depictions of White supremacy reduce its ideals to the actions of supremacist hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, one of the most notable accounts of the origins of White supremacy points to the historic and ongoing imposition of Eurocentrism and European power, governance structures, and social ideologies around the world (Goldstein 2018).

2.1.1.2 Intersectionality

Intersectionality provides a lens to understand how an individual’s multiple socially constructed characteristics (like race, gender, and ability) overlap to determine the individual’s access (or lack thereof) to power and privilege (Roberts et al. 2019). Individuals experience transportation-related spaces differently based on their identity in airports, on aircraft, while using transit, in transit stations, etc. For example, an individual who identifies as a transgender Black woman experiences transportation and other systems through the lens of their intersecting identities. Their experience is shaped by how others might perceive their intersecting identities during their journey, how others might behave around them, and how the transportation service or infrastructure amenities reflect an understanding of their needs. Equitable planning and decision-making intend to document, highlight, and prioritize the experiences of underrepresented identities using an intersectional approach that considers race, gender, nationality, ability, class, employment, language, citizenship status, and educational background.

2.1.2 Settler Colonialism

Settler colonialism is the often genocidal geographic descension of one group onto the land of people Indigenous to the region. Settler colonialism uses tactics such as domination, violence, land grabbing, and exploitation to occupy the other group’s land. Today, the continued degradation of Native lands, the sociocultural erasure of Indigenous people, and references to Indigenous people as “Indians” are examples of ongoing erasure and perpetuation of settler colonial ideologies. Many airports in the United States are located on lands that were stolen from Indigenous people as well as land that is still adjacent to Indigenous Tribal communities.

Moufawad-Paul (2013) uses the term “sublimated colonialism” to describe the accounts of U.S. history that imply that land and culture belonging to Indigenous people underwent simple processes of secession. The land that is now referred to as North America was invaded when discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. His “discovery” of North America inspired the Doctrine of Discovery, an international legal principle used by colonial powers to legitimize and “legalize” (Reid 2010) the seizure of Indigenous land, globally. The doctrine decreed the quest to rally colonial powers to spread the values of the “Church” (Miller 2011), cultivate “unused” land (Bauer 2014), promote racial superiority (Charles and Rah 2019), and strengthen European control across the globe (McNeil 2015).

Manifest Destiny, the continuation of the Doctrine of Discovery, describes conquest based on the belief that White people were anointed by God to claim and rule over the land that is now known as the Americas. Racial inferiority was perpetuated through narratives describing Indigenous and racialized people as “beasts” (Smith 1970), “dark,” “demonic,” and brute-like “savages” (Takaki 1992) in need of “God’s chosen people’’ (McSloy 1996) to save them. The legacy of Manifest Destiny and the Doctrine of Discovery continues to produce present-day outcomes such as violence, cultural erasure, environmental degradation, and modern slavery.

Land use practices in the United States are rooted in the violent dispossession of Indigenous people from their land through the means and justification of settler colonialism by White Anglo-Protestants (Dunbar-Ortiz 2014). Hundreds of nations of Indigenous people, the original inhabitants of the land referred to as the United States, were colonized as a means of establishing the systemic framework for British governance over stolen Indigenous territories and subjected to violence and genocide. Historians recognize the destruction of Indigenous ways of place-based being and knowing (Coates 2004), the erasure of cultures and languages (Bielenberg 1998; Harvey and Rivett 2017), and the massacre of millions of Indigenous people (Maybury-Lewis 2002).

Indigenous scholars assert that the primary point of contention regarding all forms of oppression and inequity in the United States (and more broadly, North America) is rooted in a struggle for land. Violent acquisition of Indigenous land resulted in multicentury contention, rooted in racism and anti-Indigeneity, whereby African people were kidnapped, enslaved, and forced to work the stolen land to produce goods for consumption and profit for the colonizers’ benefit (Franklin 1969). Land use was enforced through the policing of access and movement through the land and racist restrictions to so-called land ownership. This foundation of the United States invoked the modern social construction of racism (Kendi 2019), the economic system of racial capitalism (Kaba et al. 2021), the mandated criminalization of Black people through Jim Crow laws of the 1860s (Wilkerson 2011), and policies and plans whose legacies continue to impact racialized communities—like redlining practices (Taylor 2019; Crouch and Willis-Thomas 2002) and interstate highway construction (Loewen 2006).

2.1.3 Economic Systems of Racial Capitalism

Throughout history, the identity marker of whiteness has provided social (Jensen 2020) and economic (Baldwin 2012) value to those who possess it. Today, scholars refer to this value or the process of obtaining it as racial capitalism (Leong 2013; Kelley 2017). Racial capitalism theories illustrate how the mandate of productivity within capitalist societies stems from slavery as the early means of the accumulation of resources and power (Gilmore 2018). “The term ‘racial capitalism’ requires its users to recognize that capitalism is racial capitalism. Capital can only be capital when it is accumulating, and it can only accumulate by producing and moving through relations of severe inequality among human groups . . . procedures of racialization and capitalism are ultimately never separable from each other” (Melamed 2015). Political theorist Cedric Robinson’s work laid the foundation for theorizing the relationship between capitalism and racism, and it remains relevant to contemporary social justice movements (Robinson 2000).

The genocide of Indigenous people and the enslavement of African captives are two examples of the most violent forms of racial capitalism in history (Leroy and Jenkins 2021). Through the acquisition of stolen land and slave labor, racial capitalism proved to be profitable as America established itself as a global force in militarization and economic trade (Morgan 2021; Osterweil 2020).

The transatlantic slave trade and the history of chattel slavery in the United States represent an intentional and violent extraction of racialized people for economic value in the interest of White wealth. The transatlantic slave trade initiated the involuntary, forcible, and essentially permanent transport of approximately 12 million Africans to Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States to be held in captivity and forced into slavery (Ngwe 2012; Magee 2009). Chattel slavery, a distinction from the general term slavery, refers to a race-based institution to which one is granted legal ownership of another, typically Black, human being (Zimmerman 2011). The European colonies on the American continent, and ultimately the new nation of the United States, practiced the system of chattel slavery from the 17th to 19th century. The legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and the centuries of chattel slavery that followed is directly linked to the inequities experienced by Black people today in the United States. Scholars attribute the institution of chattel slavery to the “development and entrenchment of modern anti-Black racial prejudice and ‘scientific’ theories of race” (Blaut 1993, 61–62; Jordon 1968).

The first major investment in transportation systems in the United States, the railroad system, was created to facilitate the transport of Black people—who were considered cargo/chattel, not human beings—in the role of trade and capitalism (Yusoff 2018). The irony of this history is that the railroads used for the movement of goods were built through the labor of enslaved Black people (K. K. Thomas 2011) and later, indentured Chinese migrants (Chang 2019). While the physical movement of Black and Indigenous people was criminalized and punished, Black people and Indigenous people were forced to build the infrastructure necessary to move goods and capital across the land now known as the United States (Kornweibel 2010).

Racial capitalism persists today. Even after the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which partially abolished slavery, racial capitalism evolved in ways that continue to oppress, isolate, criminalize, and imprison racialized and low-wealth people (Leroy and Jenkins 2021). Racialized communities continue to experience commodification (Leong 2013), exploitation (Burden-Stelly 2020), violence (Melamed 2011), subjugation (Leroy and Jenkins 2021), criminalization (Ralph and Singhal 2019), segregation (Fluri et al. 2022), and incarceration (Calathes 2017).

There is also evidence to show the labor system is structured to inhibit the economic advancement of racialized people. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, racial and gender segregation across workforces was deeply institutionalized throughout the United States (Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey 2012). Scholars argue that racial hierarchies were reflected in almost every industry and work setting that placed racialized people and women in lower positions and White men in supervisory positions (Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey 2012). The structural origins of workplaces, unions, and wages aimed to protect the economic interests of whiteness. As a result of slavery and racialization in the United States, racial stereotypes persisted, allowing White employers to categorize racialized laborers as unintelligent, lazy, docile, low skilled, and generally inferior to White laborers.

Racialized people in the United States have experienced a history of legal and social limitations that seek to control or limit movement, behavior, culture, and decision-making (Nicholson and Sheller 2016). Discriminatory laws, policing, and incarceration represent the most effective tools for control and exclusion of racialized people (Adams and Rameau 2016; Hawkins and Thomas 2013). Scholars and organizers Adams and Rameau (2016) link police, from their origin, as an “occupying force” established to assert power and social order over racialized people. In addition to policing, laws at the local, state, and federal levels disproportionately targeted and discriminated against racialized people. As a result, the basis of race determined the differential treatment and harmful outcomes for racialized people (Fellner 2009).

Persistent criminalization of Black people throughout United States history provides context for mass incarceration and the current state of the carceral system (Alexander 2012). Mass incarceration is defined by Garland (2001) as “a rate of imprisonment . . . that is markedly above the historical and comparative norm for societies of this type” (Garland 2001). Since the 1980s, when a war on drugs and crime was politically waged on Black and Brown communities, there has been an approximate 500 percent increase in the total prison population (Nellis 2021). With a corrections population of approximately 2 million people, the United States has the highest imprisonment rate in the world (Sawyer and Wagner 2022). The disproportionate impact of mass incarceration spans all ages as Black youth are over four times as likely to be detained or committed in juvenile facilities as their White peers (Rovner 2021). According to the Sentencing Project, Black people in the United States are incarcerated in state prisons across the country at nearly five times the rate of White people (Nellis 2021). Scholar Michelle Alexander refers to the overwhelming number of African Americans in the carceral system as “the new Jim Crow” (Alexander 2012).

2.1.4 Systemic Oppression

Systemic oppression is a function of racism and othering that manifests in several ways. Systemic oppression “is the result of three levels working together all the time, reproducing and influencing each other steadily: (1) the personal/individual, (2) the cultural/ideological, and (3) the structural/institutional level” (Liedauer 2021).

Oppression proves pervasive and challenging to disrupt because it can function covertly in day-to-day life (sometimes referred to as civilized oppression), and people may become desensitized to it. While oppression can be characterized as systemic, those accountable for its outcomes are individual actors within systems. Patterns of individual acts form the basis of systemic oppression. Thus, a dual accountability framing that acknowledges institutions and individuals is critical to analyzing oppression and its impacts. The institutional manifestation of systemic oppression takes place by way of laws, policies, procedural standards, exclusionary eligibility rules, and the inaccessibility of basic economic, health, and quality-of-life needs (Liedauer 2021).

Oppression manifests in relation to both mobility and place, which makes it a critical consideration in transportation systems. Historic regulatory and legal practices have criminalized the movement and travel of racialized communities and established race-based housing restrictions. White institutions have utilized violence, aggressive policing, displacement, and even death to limit the mobility of Black and Indigenous people. Violent tactics to control mobility are observed throughout U.S. history from the transatlantic slave trade to the Trail of Tears, Bloody Sunday in Selma, immigration detention centers, and the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in 2020.

2.1.4.1 Structural Racism

The advantageous positionality of White people due to structural racism produces harmful outcomes for racialized people. The continuity of structural racism can be attributed to racial profiling and discrimination within historical, cultural, institutional, and interpersonal practices.

Structural racism describes how inequalities have been “produced and reproduced within the structures of the U.S. criminal legal system” (Rucker and Richeson 2021). The execution of the criminal legal system by design recruits policing and surveillance tactics that include racial profiling and discrimination that negatively impact and harm racialized people (Bass 2001; Roberts 1998). Although many legal forms of racial discrimination were overturned through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, racialized people still experience discrimination and racism in their daily lives today (Sellers and Shelton 2003).

2.1.4.2 Oppression Related to Mobility

Today’s mobility options, practices, and norms are rooted in well-documented histories of oppression. Promptly after the passage of the 13th Amendment and the procedural abolishment of chattel slavery in 1865, Jim Crow laws were introduced to limit the freedom and movement of Black people in the United States. Jim Crow laws segregated workforces at jobsites (Roback 1984), criminalized interracial relationships and marriages (Oh 2006), mandated segregated medical care (Ward 2010; Kernahan 2021), segregated and enforced substandard care in medical facilities (Nuriddin 2019; K. K. Thomas 2011), and established a set of behavioral codes that limited the travel, expression, and autonomy of Black people (Ritterhouse 2006; Guffey 2012). In response to the Jim Crow laws, The Negro Motorist Green Book was published by Victor Green as a guide for Black people; it identified the businesses that allowed Black patrons throughout the United States (Green 1936). The Green Book was one of the many ways Black people adapted to constraints of mobility and movement that were pervasive during Jim Crow and thereafter.

During and after Reconstruction, to escape the Jim Crow South, Black people began to migrate to the north (Marks 1985). In Louisiana, the legacy of slavery and White supremacy ideologies legitimized a “separate but equal” Supreme Court ruling that further dehumanized Black people in the United States and reinforced social hierarchy (Lipsitz 2015). The Separate Car Act segregated railway cars by race for Black riders and White riders (Medley 2015). In 1892, Homer Plessy, a multiracial Black man, agreed to challenge the Act and sit in a “Whites-only” car of a Louisiana train (Brenman 2007). When Plessy was told to vacate the Whites-only car, he refused and was arrested. At trial, Plessy’s lawyers argued that his arrest violated the 13th and 14th Amendments (Johnson 2018). The judge, Associate Justice Henry Billings Brown, ruled in favor of state courts and found that Louisiana did not act unlawfully, and Plessy was convicted (Medley 2015).

The Plessy v. Ferguson ruling validated the segregation of all modes of public transportation in the South. From 1865 to 1967, there were “more than four hundred state laws, constitutional amendments, and city ordinances legalizing segregation” (Brenman 2007, para. 9). There were

even laws that prohibited hearses from carrying Black people after death (Brenman 2007). The Plessy v. Ferguson decision fortified the groundwork for utilizing laws and courts to limit the movement of Black people and other racialized people. The fight for mobility justice and civil rights within transportation continued into the latter half of the 1900s with the Freedom Riders and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (Alderman et al. 2013; Bullard et al. 2004).

In Jim Crow Terminals, Anke Ortlepp specifically documents the racial history of airport facilities that, as with other transportation modes, contributed to racial segregation, dehumanization, and trauma (Ortlepp 2017). While the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 prohibited air carriers from discriminating against airline passengers based on racial background, municipally owned airports were overt in their discriminatory policies and practices. From the 1940s to the 1960s, airports were particularly hostile toward racialized people: barring them from using the restroom and certain terminal dining establishments, segregating seating and waiting areas, and demolishing Black communities for the construction of airport terminals. These discriminatory practices were most pervasive in the South but were present across the United States varying “from place to place, even with states, reflecting the local character of the legal landscape . . . and sometimes airport managers made the rules” (Ortlepp 2017, 26).

2.1.4.3 Oppression Related to Place

Alongside the oppression that limited freedom and movement, there was substantial oppression in the housing market, which ultimately shaped land use and imposed intergenerational harm on oppressed people. Segregation and institutionalized disinvestment such as redlining (see below) are examples of harmful, oppressive practices that isolate racialized and othered groups from economic opportunities like homeownership. Racism, anti-immigrant nativism, and religious discrimination (particularly anti-Semitism) all intersected with early 20th-century policies of residential segregation. The legacy of structural racism in the housing market and built environment manifests as ongoing depressed wealth for Black people (Conley 2010; Shapiro 2005; McIntosh et al. 2020; Mitchell and Franco 2018, 29).

In the early 20th century, land use zoning served as one of the primary tools to disinvest from low-wealth neighborhoods and racially segregate housing. Conceptually, zoning enables regulation of density, provides for local control of land use, and offers a means to limit or avoid nuisances. Zoning was intended to remedy many of the significant health risks associated with early 20th-century urbanization, such as overcrowding and exposure to potentially hazardous land uses (Peterson 2003). In the United States, zoning practices focused on land use separation and segregation of various population groups.

Racial zoning was motivated by racist beliefs that racial integration within neighborhoods was a threat to public health, safety, and welfare. For example, racist and pro-segregation officials promoted the practice as a means of preventing the spread of disease, interracial marriage, and miscegenation (Nightingale 2006). Racial zoning was first implemented in Baltimore in 1910 and quickly spread to other cities throughout the United States, particularly in the mid-Atlantic and South. The practice was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional in the 1917 Buchanan v. Warley decision. However, policies and practices evolved to utilize facially race-neutral zoning (emphasizing class-based restrictions, e.g., barring rental housing or multifamily housing from new suburbs), comprehensive planning, and restrictive covenants to continue to sustain the effects of racial segregation (Silver 1991).

After the Buchanan v. Warley decision prohibited the use of racial zoning, local city governments and the real estate sector turned to restrictive covenants to prevent racialized people from accessing housing options near White people. Restrictive covenants either required occupancy by, or sale to, the “Caucasian” or “White race” or specifically prohibited sales to or occupancy by Black people, Asian people, Latinx people, Jewish people, and racialized immigrants. Deed restrictions were often placed on new residential subdivisions and early suburbs in U.S. urban areas (Gotham 2000).

Restrictive covenants were upheld, propagated, and enforced by both the public and private sectors. The U.S. Supreme Court had an opportunity to strike down restrictive covenants as unconstitutional in the 1926 Corrigan v. Buckley decision. The court interpreted covenants as private contracts and therefore not under the jurisdiction of the court. Scholars have identified the court case as critical to the rapid growth and expansion of covenants across the nation (Jones-Correa 2000).

Expulsive zoning practices also targeted the placement of noxious land uses into low-wealth and racialized neighborhoods, leading to the concentrated disruption and destabilization of Black communities. This practice deteriorates neighborhood conditions, creates environmental and health hazards, and lowers property values for homeowners. Expulsive zoning is a primary driver of contemporary environmental justice challenges in racially segregated urban neighborhoods (Whittemore 2017).

Racially restrictive covenants, real estate practices, and zoning restrictions established an institutionalized pattern of residential segregation. By the 1930s, redlining practices and housing policies that emerged from New Deal housing policies further institutionalized place-based oppression. The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) was an agency created in response to escalating foreclosures during the Great Depression to refinance home loans. By 1935, the HOLC held nearly one-fifth of all mortgage debt for one- to four-family residential properties (Faber 2020).

As part of their home-loan management strategy, the HOLC created real estate risk assessment maps throughout the 1930s. These maps greatly influenced city planning and resulted in structural inequities and segregation that continue today. HOLC risk assessment maps created four rating tiers; properties rated as Grades A and B were generally deemed safe for investment, whereas properties rated as Grades C and D were considered unsafe or hazardous for investment. The color red was used to denote “hazardous” conditions in D-rated neighborhoods, resulting in the origin of the term “redlining.”

Redlining of urban neighborhoods produced decades of disinvestment as Federal Housing Administration (FHA) guidelines mandated racial separation of inharmonious racial or nationality groups in the rapidly growing post–World War II suburbs (Tillotson 2014). Although the United States experienced a housing development boom of suburban growth in the mid-20th century after World War II, Black people had limited housing options. Black people were mostly barred from accessing new housing due to exclusionary zoning (which would not allow rental housing), and they were unable to purchase homes due to openly discriminatory underwriting policies, leaving them with few options. Post–World War II public housing policies created a more intense form of segregation and unprecedented concentrated poverty.

Post-war policies, such as urban renewal (established in the Housing Act of 1949) and the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, further redlined neighborhoods, causing widespread disruption and displacement (Bullard et al. 2004). Urban renewal programs disproportionately displaced Black and Latinx families (Digital Scholarship Lab 2022). Urban highway construction created further displacement as highway projects were often sited in or through formerly redlined neighborhoods (Karas 2015).

FHA guidelines also influenced exclusionary zoning by emphasizing the land use characteristics of single-family suburban development in the agency’s site standards (Whittemore 2013). Many high-rise public housing sites never managed to sustainably finance their operations, resulting in dehumanizing and unsafe housing conditions (Bristol 1991). Black veterans were also less likely to benefit from the GI Bill, limiting another potential pathway to homeownership

(Woods 2013). Barred from access to the nation’s rapidly expanding suburbs, racialized people were relegated to redlined neighborhoods, experiencing substantial disinvestment (Reece 2018).

Redlining as a form of structural racism in the built environment led to detrimental community and environmental conditions (An et al. 2019). Public health studies indicate that historic redlining is linked to contemporary health outcomes (McClure et al. 2019), elevated exposure to unhealthy extreme heat events (Wilson 2020), and inequities in access to green space (Nardone et al. 2021). Redlining has been empirically linked to contemporary poor health outcomes such as preterm birth (Krieger et al. 2020), cancer (Krieger et al. 2020), and infant mortality (Reece 2021). Historic patterns of redlining were associated with increased risk for predatory lending practices and resulting foreclosures experienced during the 2008 housing crisis (Hernandez 2009).

The Civil Rights Movement challenged discriminatory housing and development policies throughout the 20th century through litigation and organized protest. The NAACP, and later the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, played a role in legally challenging racial zoning and restrictive covenants (Vose 1954). Organized community groups and coalitions challenged the damage inflicted by federal highway policies in the “highway revolts” of the 1960s and 1970s. These efforts would ultimately contribute to political pressure on federal reforms such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires an assessment of the environmental impacts of federally funded infrastructure projects.

As a byproduct of backlash to urban renewal and other policies, city planning practices eventually embraced mechanisms of community engagement and advocacy on behalf of unrepresented communities (Reece 2018). Dr. Martin Luther King’s Open Housing Movement challenged discriminatory housing policies in northern cities, most notably in Chicago, Illinois. In the aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination, landmark civil rights legislation, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (also known as the Fair Housing Act), passed Congress after languishing for years. It was the first comprehensive federal act intended to support open housing markets (Powell and Reece 2009). The federal Fair Housing Act was effective at reducing private discrimination in the market but was unable to counter exclusionary zoning practices.

2.2 Transportation and the Geography of Inequity

Aviation facilities interact with an external built and social environment that was shaped by centuries of land use, infrastructure development, and housing policies and practices. Racialized geographies directly resulted from public and private sector policies and practices that rigidly introduced and reinforced racial residential segregation. These policies and practices impacted multiple racial, ethnic, and religious groups and most directly oppressed Black people (J. M. Thomas 1994). Therefore, widespread inequity is the present-day outcome of geographic racialization. Historically, the racialization of geographical boundaries has not only determined political representation and governmental jurisdiction but also defined communities’ ability to access local decision-making processes and needed resources (Ford 1994). Aviation practitioners should consider which type of geography they impact with their work, and then explore the ways that processes of racialization lead to widespread inequities and oppression within that geographic context.

2.3 Approaches to Justice in Infrastructure Planning

Fundamentally, “equity” and “justice” are concepts that represent notions of morality and ethics in society. These concepts acknowledge that othering, settler colonialism, economic systems of racial capitalism, and systemic oppression have embedded prejudiced, immoral, and unethical processes and outcomes into both the informal and institutional fabric of modern society.

Equitable processes identify and provide the tangible and intangible rights, tools, and resources that individuals, households, or social groups need to experience equal access to opportunity. Different philosophies and value systems may assert different combinations of opportunities as necessary for individual well-being or societal well-being. For example, opportunities might include the right to clean air, the right to quiet enjoyment at home, access to affordable health care, or a livable minimum wage. Equitable outcomes result when individuals, households, and social groups can obtain what is valuable to them to thrive in society and are without disparities that disadvantage othered groups.

While equity tends to focus on giving individuals what they need to thrive, justice moves conceptually toward more direct critiques of the systems that perpetuate inequity. Academics and legal scholars have introduced a variety of justice terms to describe different ways to observe and describe the nuances of ethics and morality in society. The specific practices of recognizing, describing, and delivering justice vary across disciplines, such as city planning, criminal law, anthropology, and public health. Table 2-1 provides an overview of eight terms that are relevant to airport infrastructure planning, of which social justice is the broadest and most general term. Mobility justice, while also broad, is specific to transportation. As scholar Mimi Sheller explains, “Mobility justice is an overarching concept for thinking about how power and inequity inform the governance and control of movement, shaping the patterns of unequal mobility and immobility in the circulation of people, resources, and information” (Sheller 2018, 14). This framing of mobility justice invites transportation planners to ask political and ethical questions about transportation systems and recognize how those systems contribute to (or detract from) freedom of movement at the individual scale, the city scale, and the global scale.

Deliberative, epistemic, and procedural justice are related to notions of morality and ethics that commonly manifest during civic forums where community voices can meaningfully affect decisions made about them. An important element of this effort is recognizing the value and legitimacy of community input and respecting their expressions of harm and need. Additionally, governance decisions routinely involve purplelining, scoping the legitimacy of deliberation—identifying who is a legitimate participant and which issues are of legitimate concern to discuss (D. Thomas 2020). Specifically, purplelining is a dynamic that occurs when, as neighborhoods gentrify and the White population increases, higher-wealth residents move into historically racialized neighborhoods, and the needs and priorities, including transportation needs, of newcomers are quickly addressed at the expense of long-standing residents. Transportation infrastructure decision-making then prioritizes the ways higher-wealth people prefer to travel and forces racialized people to adhere to these standards of normative travel.

Distributive and environmental justice are related to notions of fairness that commonly manifest as individuals evaluate the economic, social, and environmental impacts of airport operations across geographies and social groups. Finally, transformative justice is related to notions of ethical harm reduction and repair that arise when seeking institutional atonement and reparations. For example, reparative planning is a term that garnered increased attention in the urban planning community (Williams 2020; Williams and Steil 2023) during the 2020 racial awakening that occurred in response to the widespread hurt and outrage resulting from the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 (D. Thomas 2020).

Table 2-1 provides an overview of justice-oriented terminology that is commonly associated with transportation infrastructure planning and related considerations within the airport development context. Section 6.3 of the ACRP Web-Only Document 60 provides additional detail concerning approaches to justice.

Table 2-1. Justice-oriented terminology that is commonly associated with transportation infrastructure planning (sorted alphabetically).

TERM	BRIEF DESCRIPTION	EXAMPLE AIRPORT CONSIDERATIONS
Deliberative Justice	Relates to the democratic framework for the ways community or group decision-making is hosted, conducted, managed, or guided. This requires an understanding of existing power inequities that can manifest during group discourse.	How does the design of a public meeting affect communication? What are the power dynamics within and between the community and the airport owner? Who hosts the conversation; where and how does communication emerge? How is communication resolved? What communication tools are used? Whose opinion weighs/matters more and why?
Distributive Justice	Relates to the moral distribution of resources, harm, or benefits. Outcomes are typically compared across different social groups and geographic areas.	Are the economic benefits of an airport meaningful to residents living near the facility? Does this improve upon or compound existing unfair distributions of access to dignified jobs with livable wages? Who is the most harmed by emissions among airport personnel, ground-support functions, and adjacent communities?
Environmental Justice	Relates to the sustainable and equitable distribution of environmental resources, hazards, exposure, or harm. Outcomes are typically compared across different social groups and geographic areas.	Are the airport’s environmental pollutants or environmental health hazards concentrated in certain geographies or certain sociodemographic groups? Does this compound on existing unfair distributions of health care resources?
Epistemic Justice	Relates to equity in how credibility is assigned to and shared with different knowledge holders. Knowledge is produced and contained within individuals with othered identity markers and who have been undermined and unrepresented in the dominant language, social lexicon, and other means of information exchange.	Are Tribal partners’ cultural practices and ways of knowing honored and respected in the planning process? Are othered groups in the workforce valued as experts in their disciplines? Is knowledge stigmatized because of communication style or markers of disability (e.g., speech, cadence, dialect, body movements, eye contact)?
Mobility Justice	Relates to the ethics of the opportunities and experiences for geographic movement in society, which includes the circulation of people, goods, services, and information.	How does a person with different identity markers experience the airport as a passenger? What is the travel cost or burden for airport workers to reach the airport? How does the airport contribute to global vs. local patterns of movement? Are Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-accessible services evaluated when the airport goes through major construction or renovation?
Procedural Justice	Relates to the fairness of access to the processes of deliberation and decision-making. This includes access to information and meaningful participation that shapes deliberation outcomes.	Is the planning process accessible to the public? Is the process transparent, practically accessible, and understandable to the public? Can the public meaningfully participate to influence the outcome?
Social Justice	Relates to the moral and equitable distribution of civil rights and access to social, economic, and political opportunity. Most definitions relate to protecting rights and resources needed for self-determination, self-development, or capacity to contribute to the common good.	What role do airports play in the protection or violation of human rights? For example, how does the airport interact with human trafficking, incarcerated people, or other forms of captivity or detention? How does airport management deal with experiences of bias and discrimination against passengers who are processed through airport security?
Transformative Justice	Relates to the available alternative social systems that can transform social structures and promote atonement. Transformation requires those who harm to acknowledge past and current harms, redress harm, support healing for those who have been harmed, and end systems that perpetuate harm. Transformative justice recognizes that institutional oppression is the root of the harm and abuse.	Does the airport owner know which communities are experiencing harm at the airport (as passengers or members of the workforce) or near the airport (as local community members)? How can the airport owner change the internal structure of the organization to interrupt and end cycles of harm? What specific opportunities to address and repair the harm does the airport create?

2.4 Federal Policy Context

Airport operators that are part of the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) and receive federal funding via grants from the FAA are subject to specific regulations and policies that influence airport planning practices and funding. Certain regulations, policies, and funding mechanisms have been implemented to rectify social injustices and the present-day implications of structural racism. This section is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all federal policies designed to address injustices but rather a sampling that is relevant to transportation and the aviation industry.

2.4.1 Civil Rights Act of 1964

Civil rights movements have been particularly influential in establishing a baseline framework for what is now considered a mobility justice movement (Cook and Butz 2019). The Civil Rights Movement laid the foundation for the evolution of the environmental justice movement. In the 1960s, civil rights leaders drew attention to the public health impacts experienced by racialized communities living in proximity to toxic waste and disposal sites (Bullard 1993); this advocacy occurred before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title VI, which led to greater mobilizing around the issue of environmental justice and tasked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with preventing environmental injustice and civil rights violations. Inspired by the successful tactics used in the Civil Rights Movement, many of the same leaders entered the early environmental justice movement and adopted Civil Rights Movement strategies, such as mass political education, petitions, rallies, marches, coalition building among movements, nonviolent direct action, and litigation (Bullard and Johnson 2000).

Federal agencies are responsible for ensuring nondiscrimination and equal opportunity within their programs and funding mechanisms under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Airports are subject to federal nondiscrimination regulations as recipients of federal grant funding under FAA grant assurances (FAA 2020). The U.S. DOT Title VI regulations state that “no person in the United States shall, on the grounds of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise subjected to discrimination under any program or activity for which the recipient receives Federal assistance from the Department of Transportation” (49 C.F.R. § Part 21, 1970). FAA regulations also prohibit discrimination based on sex, religion, and age.

2.4.2 National Environmental Policy Act

NEPA is a landmark piece of legislation passed in 1970 that requires federal agencies to evaluate and report regulated environmental, social, and economic impacts of their proposed projects or actions. NEPA also created the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to develop policies and oversee the federal government’s implementation of NEPA reporting requirements. Due to the extensive reporting policies established in the NEPA legislation, a new planning process emerged for federal infrastructure that is now commonly referred to as the “NEPA process.” Further, as the federal government passed subsequent environmental regulations, a broader, more comprehensive “National Environmental Policy” emerged (42 U.S.C § 4321-4370h, 1970). NEPA applies to airports whenever there is a federal action, such as the use of federal funds, e.g., Airport Improvement Program grants for airport infrastructure projects or FAA approval of airport layout plans. Therefore, airports are expected to adhere to the most current established national environmental policies (EPA 2022).

President Clinton established the first executive order (E.O.) for environmental justice in 1994, which formalized a federal definition of environmental justice into the NEPA process. Subsequent federal guidelines on how agencies should develop and implement practices to evaluate and

enhance environmental justice have since been released [E.O. 12898 and content on the Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice (EJIWG) in Subsection 2.4.3].

The CEQ periodically develops revised NEPA implementing regulations for federal agencies. It is common practice for federal agencies to develop their own orders and internal guidance to implement federal regulations established by the legislative and executive branches. For example, the Secretary of the U.S. DOT and leadership in the FAA have published a variety of documents that guide the agencies’ implementation of NEPA, including environmental justice considerations: the U.S. DOT issued Order 5610.2(a), Final DOT Environmental Justice Order; the FAA issued Order 1050.1F, Environmental Impacts: Policies and Procedures and the accompanying Desk Reference; and the FAA Office of Airports, Order 5050.4B, NEPA Implementing Instructions for Airport Actions.

2.4.3 Executive Orders

Several E.O.s address environmental justice and equity that pertain to federal agency actions, including those of the U.S. DOT and the FAA, and therefore are important for airports to understand. These include

• E.O. 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations;
• E.O. 13166, Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency;
• E.O. 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government;
• E.O. 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad;
• E.O. 14091, Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government; and
• E.O. 14096, Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All.

E.O. 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations, and DOT Order 5610.2(b) require federal transportation agencies to identify whether a federal action could have disproportionately high and adverse effects on minority and low-income populations. E.O. 12898 created the federal EJIWG in 1994. The EJIWG’s NEPA Committee published Promising Practices for EJ Methodologies in NEPA Reviews in 2016, providing information to federal agencies for approaching environmental justice considerations in NEPA projects. It also published a Community Guide to Environmental Justice and NEPA Methods in March 2019, intended as a resource to communities for working with federal agencies through the NEPA process on environmental justice considerations. Additionally, E.O. 13166 requires federal agencies to provide language services for persons with limited English proficiency to enable meaningful and equitable access to information.

The 2020–2024 Biden administration has committed to advancing racial equity as a priority for the federal government through a systematic approach and creation of agency-specific equity action plans. E.O. 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, intends to advance equity and increase generational wealth in historically underserved communities through various initiatives. By way of E.O. 13985, an Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity (ACTE) was formed under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). The ACTE will work “to provide advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Transportation on comprehensive, interdisciplinary issues related to transportation equity from a variety of stakeholders involved in transportation planning, design, research, policy, and advocacy in pursuit of the Department’s equity goals” (U.S. DOT 2023).

The Biden administration created the Justice40 Initiative in response to E.O. 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, “to confront and address decades of underinvestment

in disadvantaged communities” (U.S. DOT n.d.-a, para. 1). At the U.S. DOT, Justice40 “is an opportunity to address gaps in transportation infrastructure and public services by working toward the goal that at least 40% of the benefits from many of our grants, programs, and initiatives flow to disadvantaged communities” (U.S. DOT n.d.-a, para. 2). The Office of Management and Budget, CEQ, and National Climate Advisor issued Interim Guidance on calculating benefits and reporting requirements for Justice40-covered programs in 2021 (OMB 2021).

E.O. 14008 created a White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council within the Executive Office of the President, led by the chair of the CEQ whose membership represents the leaders of federal agencies and cabinet members. This group was tasked with leading the federal government’s approach to addressing environmental injustice, creating performance metrics, and ensuring accountability. E.O. 14008 also created the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council within the EPA to provide recommendations to the Interagency Council and represent broad perspectives on the topics of environmental justice, climate change, and racial inequity.

E.O. 14091, Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, creates a requirement for federal agencies to create an Agency Equity Team and a White House Steering Committee on Equity to coordinate actions across the federal government.

E.O. 14096, Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All, issued in April 2023, continues to build on the Biden administration’s other related actions, including E.O. 14008, E.O. 12898, and Justice40. E.O. 14096 reinforces direction to federal agencies to implement “meaningful public involvement” to make information about environmental and health impacts available to communities. It establishes an Environmental Justice Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council within the Office of Science and Technology Policy, along with a White House Office of Environmental Justice within the CEQ, implements a reporting requirement for all federal agencies on their environmental justice strategic plans to the CEQ, and includes requirements to assess and publicly report progress toward agency goals.

2.4.4 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes a focus on environmental justice and investment in historically underserved and disadvantaged communities. The BIL provides historic funding for investments in transportation, including aviation. Through the BIL, the FAA has an opportunity to “build safer and more sustainable airports that connect individuals to jobs and communities to the world” (FAA 2021, para. 2). The law provides $15 billion for airports to invest in infrastructure projects related to runways, taxiways, safety, sustainability, terminals, airport-transit connections, and roadway improvements over 5 years (FAA 2021). It also includes $5 billion in funding for airport terminal development projects and an additional $5 billion in funding for updates to air traffic facilities. The BIL provides historic funding opportunities for infrastructure in underresourced communities but recognizes that these communities also require tools to access and deploy that funding. Several federal technical assistance programs for transportation projects exist for state, local, and Tribal governments to take advantage of the historic funding opportunities (Build.gov 2022).

2.4.5 Inflation Reduction Act

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act invests in clean energy and climate action through various economic tools such as grants, loans, rebates, and tax provisions. It intends to create jobs, lower energy costs for consumers, encourage investment in disadvantaged communities, reduce emissions, and accelerate private investment in clean energy solutions and infrastructure. The Inflation

Reduction Act supports the Justice40 Initiative and aims to benefit communities with environmental justice concerns and legacy pollution, including a $3 billion environmental justice grant program. It also targets benefits to working families, tribes, rural communities, and communities that were historically reliant on fossil fuel extraction, processing, or storage. The Inflation Reduction Act also incentivizes development and support of clean transportation fuels and infrastructure, including sustainable aviation fuels. It includes both a Sustainable Aviation Fuel Credit and $297 million in funding for the FAA’s Alternative Fuel and Low-Emission Aviation Technology Program (The White House 2023).

2.4.6 U.S. Department of Transportation Equity Plans

The U.S. DOT committed to centering equity through its most recent DOT Strategic Plan (Fiscal Year 2022–2026), which elevates equity as a strategic goal of the department and through its Equity Action Plan created in response to E.O. 13985 (January 2022). The U.S. DOT is focused on four equity objectives centered on communities: expanding access, wealth creation, power of community, and interventions. “USDOT is using these focus areas to develop concrete actions that will thoughtfully redress historic inequities, positively impact historically underserved or overburdened communities in meaningful ways, and ensure that the Department is equipped to equitably deliver its resources and benefits” (U.S. DOT 2022, 3).

The U.S. DOT equity efforts also highlight advancing access and opportunity for individuals with disabilities through the ADA of 1990 and its 2022 Disability Policy Priorities. The priorities are “enabling safe and accessible air travel; enabling multimodal accessibility of public transportation facilities, vehicles, and rights-of-way; enabling access to good-paying jobs and business opportunities for people with disabilities; and enabling accessibility of electric vehicles and automated vehicles” (U.S. DOT n.d.-b, para. 1).

2.4.7 Federal Aviation Administration

The FAA is responsible for ensuring safe and efficient air travel throughout the United States. The FAA provides technical guidance on airport planning and development and funds the development of airport infrastructure through various grants. Airport operators that are part of the NPIAS and receive federal funding via grants from the FAA are subject to FAA regulations and policies under grant assurances. As an operating mode under the U.S. DOT, FAA follows U.S. DOT regulations and guidance.

E.O. 12898—Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations—and U.S. DOT Order 5610.2(b) require the FAA to identify whether a federal action could have disproportionately high and adverse effects on minority and low-income populations. Federal actions sponsored by the FAA are subject to environmental review under NEPA, which includes environmental justice considerations. The FAA is responsible for ensuring nondiscrimination and equal opportunity under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. FAA advances access and opportunity for individuals with disabilities through the ADA of 1990. The U.S. DOT’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program and airport concession DBE (ACDBE) program apply to airports that receive federal financial assistance. These programs seek to rectify generational wealth and business opportunity inequalities that result from the legacies of economic systems of racial capitalism.

2.4.8 Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA exists to protect human health and the environment. EPA’s regulatory role for the aviation sector includes setting aircraft engine emissions standards and standards for other

airport-related mobile emissions sources such as vehicles and buses. The FAA enforces aircraft engine emission standards. In 2020, EPA set greenhouse gas emission standards for commercial aircraft and certain business jets. As of 2024, EPA is developing proposed emissions standards for leaded aviation gasoline, and the FAA will then need to prescribe fuel standards accordingly. FAA has created the Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions (EAGLE) initiative to transition to lead-free aviation gasoline for piston-engine aircraft by the end of 2030 (FAA 2023). Additionally, EPA and FAA participate in the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection, which focuses on reducing aircraft noise and emissions (EPA 2024).

EPA has a long history of supporting environmental justice as a priority at the federal level. EPA published its initial Environmental Justice Strategy in 1995 and has since published numerous other related guideline documents, plans, informational documents, and tools. EPA complies with NEPA and has its own procedures for NEPA implementation under 40 Code of Federal Regulations Part 6 (EPA 2007).

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