Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Disciplines

Law

Abstract

The freedom of students to learn about critical approaches to understanding their world is under sustained political attack. In this time of increasing environmental peril and political dysfunction, Professor Sean M. Kammer reflects upon the importance of critical theory (including Critical Race Theory) to understanding—and ultimately redressing—the related problems of resource scarcity and environmental degradation. While these problems can surely be described in terms of “economic inefficiencies” or “ecological disturbances,” as they most often are, they must also be understood (and taught) as problems of colonial exploitation and violence. For example, one cannot understand Justice John Marshall’s discovery doctrine or John Locke’s labor theory of property, both integral to American property and natural resources law, without scrutinizing the degree to which these doctrines legitimized the conquest and exploitation of Indigenous peoples and lands. Too often, law casebooks obscure or sanitize this history of violence and dispossession. Moreover, even those laws passed to restrict environmental pollution have too often perpetuated colonial logics, most notably in the conceptual separation between humans (“Man”) and their physical environment (“Nature”) and in the occasional embrace of environmental scientism at the expense of Indigenous knowledge. Ultimately, Professor Kammer calls for exposing the colonialist underpinnings of all laws, whether “progressive” or “regressive.” This unveiling is the only way to foster an environment where everyone’s perspectives truly matter, which has never been more important.

Publication Title

South Dakota Law Review

Volume

70

First Page

40

Download

Included in

Law Commons

Share

COinS