Gaylord, Clarice
Clarice Gaylord
Clarice Gaylord spearheaded the federal government’s first serious attempt to address the problem of pollution predominately impacting underprivileged communities. She holds a doctorate in zoology. Dr. Gaylord’s career included working for the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health. Her career transitioned to the EPA, where she directed the research grants program. Significantly, Dr. Gaylor was the first Director of the EPA’s newly created Office of Environmental Justice. Dr. Gaylord is dedicated to diversity and empowering minorities in the environmental field. During her tenure at the EPA, she implemented several programs to help promote diversity within the EPA.
“Stay focused. It’s important to get diversified work experience in the environmental field. Strive to meet your potential and go beyond. Be sure to get good mentors to help you be as powerful as possible. And make allies of people who are really interested in you and your work. Give back to the community once you’ve achieved your goal.” Clarice Gaylord, 2005.
Adam, H. M., Bell, E., Bullard, R. D., Figueroa, R. M., Gaylord, C. E., Gbadegesin, S., … & Wigley, D. C. (2001). Faces of environmental racism: Confronting issues of global justice. Gaylord, C. E., & Bell, E. (2001). Environmental justice: A national priority. Faces of Environmental Racism: confronting issues of global justice, 29-39. Tyson, F. L., Cook, K., Gavin, J., Gaylord, C. E., Lee, C., Setlow, V. P., & Wilson, S. (1998). Cancer, the environment, and environmental justice. Cancer: Interdisciplinary International Journal of the American Cancer Society, 83(S8 8), 1784-1792. Gaylord, C. E., & Twitty, G. W. (1993). Protecting Endangered Communities. Fordham Urb. LJ, 21, 771. Gaylord, C. E., & Knox, R. (1992). Helping Minorities Help the Environment. EPA J., 18, 58.
Clarice Gaylord is a native of Los Angeles, California, and the second eldest daughter of ten children. She was born on April 14, 1943, to Clarence Armstrong, a longshoreman, and Willa Mae Armstrong, a homemaker. As one of the oldest children in the household, Dr. Gaylord had significant responsibility to assist with everyday chores and tasks. Her parents were also a significant influence in Dr. Gaylord’s success. She praises her mother for being outgoing, religious, caring, and active community worker.
She credits her hardworking, practical, and grounded father for instilling a strong work ethic. Dr. Gaylord learned from her parents to be humble, to treat others as equals, and, most importantly, to always be approachable. Dr. Gaylord’s grandmother also greatly influenced her. She saw her grandmother as the epitome of strength. Dr. Gaylord’s grandmother was tough and dedicated to being active in the community.
Dr. Gaylord attended the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) for her undergraduate studies. She earned a bachelor’s degree in zoology in 1965. Dr. Gaylord moved east to attend Howard University, where she earned a master’s in zoology in 1965 and a doctorate in 1971.
Despite the stable foundation her family built for her, Gaylord always felt that there was something else out there for her. Although she moved away from home after graduating from UCLA, she never lost sight of the values her parents instilled in her, and she always applied them to her work.
After earning her Ph.D., Dr. Gaylor started as a Health Science Administrator and geneticist at the National Cancer Institute in 1972. There, Dr. Gaylord was an administrator for the Tumor-Immunology Program. Through this program, Dr. Gaylord researched the immunology of the Epstein-Barr Virus, Leukemia Virus, and the Mammary Tumor Virus in mice with cancer. In 1980, Dr. Gaylord accepted a position as executive secretary at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Gaylord faced discrimination that impeded her promotion within the NIH. As she described, she faced both a woman problem and a minority problem (Northey, 2020).
In 1984, Dr. Gaylord interviewed for a senior executive position at the EPA but was offered a job by the Assistant Administrator of the Office of Research and Development. He offered Dr. Gaylord a job as the Director of the Environmental Grants Program. In this position, in 1985, Dr. Gaylord started an EPA-sponsored college Minority Intern Program through the Environmental Careers Organization. This program placed minority students in summer internships with the EPA. The program also paid the full tuition for students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Colleges wanting to pursue environmental careers. The EPA changed the program in 1990 to include tuition compensation for students attending all types of colleges. Dr. Gaylord is dedicated to diversity and empowering minorities in the environmental field. During her tenure at the EPA, she implemented several programs to help promote diversity within the EPA.
Working for the EPA exposed Dr. Gaylord to public health and environmental issues. Dr. Gaylord’s career has not always been smooth sailing. In 1996, Dr. Gaylord was accepted to the Senior Executive Service training program at the EPA. After completing her senior executive training, Dr. Gaylord encountered difficulties obtaining the executive positions the training had prepared her for. She watched as others in the organization who completed the same training program got executive positions. As one of the first minority women to go through the program, Dr. Gaylord found that she had to deal with an agency unwilling to place her in executive positions. In fact, in 1989, Dr. Gaylor applied for a position within HR, which she considered a racism-caused demotion. In taking the job, she vowed to prevent future women and minorities from facing the same discrimination she had endured. Working in HR taught Dr. Gaylord how to increase the diversity of EPA staff. She also used the Federal Advisory Committee Act to build a community feedback mechanism for residents to have a voice in agency decisions that affected them.
In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed Dr. Gaylord as the first Director of the EPA’s newly created Office of Environmental Equity. The office had a small budget and limited staff and faced significant opposition. Within the EPA, other department heads resisted implementing EJ principles into their work, citing increased regulation from the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts that they were dealing with. Dr. Gaylord was adamant they saw the connection between improving air and water quality and improving the lives of those living in the affected communities. To help them understand, Dr. Gaylor brought in department staff on temporary rotations to learn the impacts of EJ and to share their learnings with the rest of their department. Dr. Gaylor also enlisted expertise from professors at HBCUs through a sabbatical loan agreement where the university paid their salary while they worked at the Office of Environmental Equity.
The Office of Environmental Equity continually faced budget challenges. Its many detractors tried to cut its funding, and the Office often relied on last-minute additions to unrelated bills to maintain its existence. Through the contacts she had built over the years, Dr. Gaylord kept the program afloat with the help of the Congressional Black Caucus to maintain funding.
Dr. Gaylor served as Director of the Office of Environmental Equity for five years. She left the OEJ following President Bill Clinton’s signing of Executive Order 12898 in 1994, which requires federal agencies to implement environmental justice into their work. The Office of Environmental Equity has since been renamed to the Office of Environmental Justice and moved from HR to Enforcement and Compliance. Environmental activists advocated for the move to improve its efficacy.
Dr. Gaylor created the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. The council brought together grassroots environmental activists from around the country and advocated for integrated environmental justice policies at the EPA.
Dr. Gaylord also served as Chair of the Minority College Diversity Initiative at EPA. Through this
exchange program, EPA program officers adopted minority colleges, exchanged personnel, donated supplies and equipment, hired students, and developed lecture series. The Minority College Diversity Initiative is a collaboration between the EPA and minority-serving institutions and provides additional staff support to the Office of Environmental Equity.
This initiative also functioned as a college training program for secretaries at the EPA. The initiative helped the agency to utilize talent that already exists within the institution. At the same time, it also provided opportunities for upward mobility for people already working in the agency. Many secretaries obtained college degrees and professional positions through Dr. Gaylord’s program. In addition, the EPA’s Internship program also helped minorities get into managerial positions.
In 1998, after 32 years of living on the East Coast, Gaylord returned home when her parents fell ill. Her work with the Office of Environmental Equity had shown her that her father and brother’s work as longshoremen contributed to their health problems, including asthma and prostate cancer. She worked as a Senior Policy Analyst at the EPA Region Nine office in San Diego, California. In this role, she led an environmental justice pilot project in the Barrio Logan Community of San Diego to address air quality. After serving in various capacities at US EPA for 17 years, she retired in 2001. Dr. Gaylord has achieved greatness from her humble beginnings as the daughter of a hardworking longshoreman and a homemaker.
Throughout her career, Dr. Gaylord has had several influential people in her life; likewise, she has influenced others. Her parents and grandmother gave her the inspiration and drive to jumpstart her career, but there have also been many people who have influenced and helped Dr. Gaylord’s career along the way. Chris Holmes, Assistant Administrator of Administration at the EPA, supported and funded the new Office of Environmental Justice. Dr. Gaylord also recognizes William Reilly, who appointed her the first Director of the Office of Environmental Equity. Charles Grizzle also played a key role in Dr. Gaylord’s success.
Felicia Marcus, EPA’s Regional Administrator for Region Nine, placed Dr. Gaylord in the San Diego Office to help her finish the last three years of her career with the EPA.
Many people aided Dr. Gaylord throughout the years, and she tries to do the same for young people starting out in the environmental field. As Dr. Gaylord states, “I’ve always had an open-door policy. I’ve made recommendations for people coming in who were interested in getting into various special training programs. I mentored everyone, particularly minorities and women who sought career advice and guidance. It was important to serve as a role model to aspiring young professionals in and outside the agency.” One of Dr. Gaylord’s first staff members at the Office of Environmental Equity was Marva King, who described Dr. Gaylord as a skilled and determined mentor. She has done all she can to ensure that others do not have to deal with the same injustices she faced. Dr. Gaylord is an astounding woman.
Clarice Gaylord. n.d. Home [LinkedIn Page]. LinkedIn. Retrieved July 19, 2023 from https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarice-gaylord-abbba264/
GRIST. (2014, February 25). Lady justice: Clarice Gaylord led the EPA’s fight for communities of color. Retrieved July 18, 2023 from https://grist.org/cities/lady-justice-clarice-gaylord-led-the-epas-fight….
Northey, Hannah. August 13, 2020. The trip that changed everything for an EPA pioneer. Greenwire. https://www.eenews.net/articles/the-trip-that-changed-everything-for-an-…
Taylor, Dorceta (Ed.). 2005. The Paths We Thread: Profiles of the Careers of Minority Environmental Professionals. Minority Environmental Leadership Development Initiative, University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment.