In Jackson, Mississippi, a majority-Black city that has endured years of water problems, access to safe drinking water has become a matter of survival. But now, a federal court says the Constitution does not guarantee it.
A federal appeals court has ruled that Americans do not have a constitutional right to clean drinking water, USA Today reported. But in Jackson, that legal debate is deeply personal.
Jackson residents sued in 2022 after alleging that city officials allowed people to consume lead-contaminated water and failed to warn them about the danger; we previously reported. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2024, but the plaintiffs appealed. Now, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the dismissal.
The court acknowledged that being deprived of safe drinking water was a serious and troubling harm. But it ultimately concluded that the Constitution does not recognize the right to be protected from contaminated drinking water.
“For decades, the Supreme Court has cautioned lower courts to ‘exercise the utmost care whenever we are asked to break new ground’ in the realm of substantive due process,” the court wrote, according to WLBT. “The Due Process Clause cannot, for the first time today, provide redress for plaintiff’s alleged injuries, absent any historical basis for doing so.”
The majority ruling also determined that there is no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.”
For Black communities that have repeatedly experienced environmental and infrastructure failures, this decision is crucial.
Jackson is not an isolated example. Across the country, Black people have often found themselves living with aging infrastructure, environmental hazards and unequal access to basic public services, as The Root previously reported. The history of environmental racism means that questions about who receives safe water cannot be separated from questions about race, political power and whose concerns governments take seriously.
The ruling also raises a troubling question about government accountability. The Jackson residents argued that they were not only exposed to contaminated water but were also given assurances that their water was safe, according to the court documents. If residents cannot rely on government officials to provide accurate information during a public health crisis, who is responsible when people are harmed?
The decision does not mean governments are legally free to poison their residents. Drinking-water regulations and other laws still provide protections, and residents can pursue other legal and political remedies. But the ruling does mean that the Constitution itself does not provide the specific protection the Jackson residents sought.
For Black Americans, the significance goes beyond constitutional language. Families need clean water to drink, cook, bathe and raise their children safely. But in light of the ruling, the city of Jackson has been left with more questions than answers.
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