Well-known environmentalist Willie Fontenot was giving some college students a tour of an oil refinery recently. They were standing on a public sidewalk, taking photographs of the refinery, when sheriff's deputies and refinery security guards came over and asked Fontenot to confiscate the students' drivers licenses and hand them over. Fontenot refused, and as a result, he lost his job as community liasion officer for the Louisiana Attorney General's office.
Antioch New England Graduate School, whose students were photographing the refinery, has announced that it "is working with Marylee Orr, Executive Director of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN), to create a fund to help Mr. Fontenot make up his lost salary and continue to work for environmental justice in Louisiana through a nonprofit organization of his choice." The Louisiana environmental community is also looking into what else it can to defend the right to stand on a sidewalk and talk to students. How sad.
Link (Thanks, Jim!)
