The environmental justice (EJ) movement has been a key factor in the United States’ struggle to provide a healthy environment for all to thrive. The origins of the movement date as far back as the 1960’s, led primarily by people of color and low economic status communities living in America’s most polluted environments. More recently, the just sustainability movement calls for the inclusion of EJ considerations, including social justice, equity, and human rights, into sustainability science and initiatives. Whereas previous work has elucidated synergies between both concepts, this paper provides a literature review of studies that apply the concepts of EJ and sustainability in the US to inform ways in which the concepts are merging (or not) for practical applications. The primary objectives of this review are (1) to identify the common themes in which EJ and sustainability are applied, (2) to qualitatively assess the progression of the integration of these important movements in practical applications, and (3) to inform research gaps that exist in this area. In general, we find that despite the increasing conceptual emphasis on the need to integrate these important concepts, the reviewed scholarship reveals that in practice, the integration of EJ and sustainability remains piecemeal.

U.S. universities are fraught with institutional barriers that challenge Black faculty members’ ability to thrive in academia, while they also make attempts to broaden access and participation in fields like engineering and computing. The diversity-related service requested of Black faculty members can negatively complicate their chances for tenure and promotion. This qualitative research centers on the narratives of 39 Black faculty members in engineering and computing, guided by the equity ethic framework, which we use to understand their motivations to reduce racial inequities in their fields. We found that due to being overburdened with service requests, Black faculty responded by guarding their time and energy to focus instead on self-initiated, diversity-related service. In this paper, we focus on how these Black faculty members work to broaden participation in their fields by mentoring Black students during critical academic junctures while offering supportive anti-deficit teaching and mentoring. We argue that their self-initiated activities are a form of service that is critical to widening Black participation in engineering and computing and should not be overlooked in reviewing yearly raises or in the tenure and promotion process.