While there is mounting research on the well-known white founders of social work, documentation of Black social work pioneers and their contributions is scarce -- in both social work education and the broader telling of the profession's history. Given the systemic exclusion of Black social workers in the dominant narrative of social work history,…

This article critically examines the fulsome embrace of Antiracist, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ADEI) rhetoric by social work institutions in the United States, identifying historic precedents and contemporary implications. We examine theories that captivated the profession in the last half century and the corollary political developments.…

Across the United States, racist, hate-filled rhetoric, attitudes, and behaviors are daily occurrences. Events like officer-involved shootings of unarmed Black men, women, and non-binary individuals, along with the increase in white supremacist and nationalist groups, have cumulatively created a climate of fear and mistrust. This fear and mistrust…

The heart can care but be misled by fine sounding words that obscure harms. Discovering harms is often hard work, for example determining exactly what outcomes clients experience in agencies and how to improve these, what avoidable errors social work educators and practitioners make and how to minimize these, what students actually learn and use…

As the country continues to reckon with the historical and present-day realities of systemic oppression, particularly as it impacts Black individuals and communities, it is critical that human service organizations advance beyond statements condemning forms of anti-Black racism. Institutional efforts to address anti-Black racism must embody…

Principles of diversity and difference are and have historically been, essential to social work education. However, preparing students with the knowledge, awareness, and skills of anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices has been less central in social work education until recently. In June 2022, the Council on Social Work Education issued new…

Linguistic norms concerning issues of social injustice, racism specifically, vary by discipline. In this study, the authors used content analysis to examine discourse in the social work profession related to racism and anti-racist action. Our investigation found that the usage of forthright terms such as racism, white supremacy, and oppression in…

Drawing from my experiences as an American-Israeli Jewish woman in social work academia, I use this paper to reflect upon the ways in which the Council on Social Work Education's newly-mandated anti-racist and anti-oppressive paradigms are problematic for the future of the social work profession. While it is important for social workers to address…

How do we challenge anti-Black racism within the social work curriculum? As a requirement of all BSW and MSW programs, Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE) coursework provides students with foundational knowledge about human development that is essential to theory-driven social work practice. Traditionally, conceptions of human…

In this article, I argue that antiracist political activism modeled after the teachings of critical race theory (CRT) and critical social justice theory (CSJ) more generally, is an unethical form of pedagogy and clinical praxis that will likely damage members of society by producing incompetent mental health professionals. If the premises and…