Never before in our lifetimes has the rule of law felt so tenuous. These are not normal times for a research and advocacy organization dedicated to “harnessing the power of law and public policy to create a responsive government, healthy environment and just society.” Many of the policy ideas that we have championed — for example, worker safety protections, a fair regulatory system, climate actions that address equity concerns — have been adopted in some form. And today, these policies, as well as the democratic institutions which enforce them, are under threat.
The Center for Progressive Reform was founded by five environmental and administrative law professors concerned about the rollback of federal environmental protections and committed to use their scholarship and public voice to speak out. That was 2002 and a different era. Today, we’re facing a governance crisis of constitutional proportions, yet our commitment to scholarship and public voice is unwavering.
To aid our efforts, we are pleased to welcome three outstanding legal scholars who have accepted our invitation to serve as Member Scholars. Our network of nearly seventy Member Scholars — drawn from prominent US universities — volunteer their time to support and provide independent policy research, advocacy, congressional testimony, legal insight and media efforts.
Our newest Member Scholars are:
Madison Condon has taught at Boston University School of Law since July 2020. She teaches Environmental Law, Corporations, and a seminar on climate risk and financial institutions, and is an expert on climate change, financial risk, and regulation. Her scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in leading legal journals including the UC Davis Law Review, the Washington Law Review, and the Utah Law Review. Her research has been relied upon by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Labor in rulemakings, and in 2023, Professor Condon joined the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment Academic Network Advisory Committee.
Professor Condon’s writing and commentary have been featured in popular media outlets including the New York Times, Bloomberg, NPR, Politico, The Atlantic, and The New Republic, and her scholarship has been included in collections of the best articles of the year for several fields, including environmental law, corporate law, and securities law. She was previously at New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity, where she participated in litigation against federal regulatory rollbacks. In addition to her JD from Harvard Law School, she has an MALD from Tufts University’s Fletcher School.
Justin Pidot holds the Ashby Lohse Chair in Water & Natural Resources at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, where he also co-directs the Environmental Law, Science and Policy Program. Professor Pidot’s teaching and scholarship focus on environmental and natural resources law, administrative law, and related fields. He is a co-author of Practicing Environmental Law, the first environmental law casebook to use a problems-based approach to the subject. His scholarship has appeared in leading general interest law reviews, including the Stanford Law Review, and specialty journals, including the Harvard Environmental Law Journal.
During the Biden administration, Professor Pidot served as General Counsel for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, a political appointment within the Executive Office of the President. He previously held a political appointment as the Deputy Solicitor for Land Resources at the Department of the Interior during the Obama administration and served as an appellate lawyer in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Pidot received his J.D. with distinction from the Stanford Law School.
Dr. Carlton Waterhouse is a Professor of Law and the founding director of the Environmental and Climate Justice Center at the Howard University School of Law. He is an international expert on environmental law and environmental justice, as well as reparations and redress for historic injustices. In 2021, he was appointed by President Joe Biden in the role of Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Land and Emergency Management at the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
Dr. Waterhouse lectures globally on climate justice, reparations and reconciliation, and group-based inequality. He has testified on reparations before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, and he was awarded a Fulbright research fellowship to examine race and police violence in Brazil. His views have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many other media outlets. His forthcoming book with Cambridge University Press explores the historic and contemporary role of the United States Supreme Court in both maintaining and dismantling racial dominance. In addition to his J.D. from Howard Law School, Dr. Waterhouse has a Masters of Theological Studies and a Ph.D. in Social Ethics, both from Emory University.
We are grateful to these three scholars for their expertise and public commitment on behalf of the common good.
For media inquiries, please contact Brian Gumm, Communications Director at the Center for Progressive Reform (bgumm@progressivereform.org).
