B R I E F S
7
Donation will create an environmental law clinic and
environmental justice institute
Alumnus Dick Jacobs, J.D. ’67, and his wife, Joan, made
a new $200,000 gift to Stetson Law to be used in a
challenge geared toward funding the establishment
of the Dick and Joan Jacobs Public Interest Environmental
Law Clinic. The Clinic will be to support greater stakeholder
participation in environmental policy and decision-making in
the courts, agencies, and legislatures.
Their ultimate objective is to create an Institute of
Environmental Justice with an expansive array of public interest
services to the legal and lay communities, as well as governmental
organizations, while offering law students opportunities to
provide hands-on services as part of their legal training.
“The kids have got to become the difference makers,” Dick said.
“We just can’t keep repeating the past. That’s why you go to law
school – to be a difference maker. An Institute of Environmental
Justice will give students the chance to have an impact on
environmental policies while they are still lawyers in training and,
we hope, inspire them to continue that work after graduation.”
Nonprofit recognizes Stetson Law student with education
award Nicholas Lewis, a 3L in the Environmental Law
Concentration, won the 2020 Environmental Education
Program Award from Keeping Tampa Bay Beautiful
for a K-12 lesson plan he developed for the organization’s
Environmental Education Center. KTBB promotes environmental
stewardship through volunteer and educational opportunities,
including litter cleanups, invasive plant removal, and more.
Lewis took the Environmental Advocacy class at Stetson last year,
and his lesson plan was part of the class coursework. He serves as
the treasurer of Stetson’s Environmental Law Society and has spent
most of his school breaks working with the planning department
in his hometown of Winter Park, Fla. He hopes to continue
that after graduation, working for more feasible and sustainable
development in light of Florida’s population growth, rising sea
levels, and other environmental challenges.
A Stetson contingent attended oral arguments before the United States
Supreme Court in November 2019. Pictured, from left: Professor Royal Gardner;
attorney Kathleen Gardner of Pollack Solomon Duffy LLP; attorney David
Henkin from Earthjustice who argued the case; then 3L Kate Welch; and Erin
Okuno, J.D. ’13 assistant director of Stetson’s Institute for Biodiversity Law
and Policy.
Biodiversity Institute plays role in Supreme Court decision
on Clean Water Act case
In summer 2019, Stetson Law’s Institute for Biodiversity Law
and Policy filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme
Court in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund et al. on
behalf of aquatic scientists and scientific societies. On April 23,
2020, the U.S. Supreme Court referenced that brief in its 6-3
decision, which held that the Clean Water Act (CWA) covers
the functional equivalent of direct discharges of pollutants to
navigable waters. The ruling emphatically rejected the County of
Maui and the Administration’s attempt to restrict the CWA to
direct discharges of pollutants, which would have categorically
excluded pollutants conveyed through groundwater, said Royal
Gardner, director of the Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy.
It also validated and elevated the importance of science and its role
in determining when and how the CWA applies.