October 25, 2006

Social-Work Accreditor Assailed in 3 Letters to Health and Human Services Dept.

Three organizations sent letters today asking the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to stop requiring the social workers it hires to have completed their education at social-work programs accredited by the Council on Social Work Education, unless the council modifies its accreditation criteria.

The three groups — the National Association of Scholars, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — emphasized slightly different points in their letters. But in general they said that the council’s accreditation standards include ideologically skewed requirements, such as a mandate that social-work programs pursue “strategies of advocacy and social change that advance social justice.”

Such a standard forces a “progressive” ideology upon students, and it’s inappropriate — and a violation of the First Amendment — for the department to implicitly endorse the standard in its hiring criteria, the critics said. The letters said “political conservatives” and “Christians of traditional moral views” would be unable to graduate from social-work programs under those standards, unless they kept their views to themselves, and thus would be unable to get a job in the department’s Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

The letters follow a similar message sent last fall to the U.S. Education Department. In that letter, the National Association of Scholars asked the department to investigate whether the social-work council and an equivalent group for teacher education were encouraging universities to evaluate students based on their commitment to “social justice.”

The controversy stems from the belief among the accrediting groups and officials at schools of education and social work that their students should have the right “disposition” to be teachers or social workers. But some conservative students, backed by national organizations, have characterized the disposition requirement as little more than a litmus test enforced by academic liberals.

Comments

1. So, by whatever misrepresentation necessary, by all means, let’s get rid of “social justice.” It could never occur to any of these change mavens that maybe some of their ideologues would might look more like Christianity if they made a little ‘progress.’ Heaven forbid that ‘social work’ involves ‘social justice.’

   — M. Lyons    Oct 25, 06:09 PM    #

2. In reply to M. Lyons, he has the right to approve and promote what he calls progress and social justice. The point is that it is heinous to impose such an ideology on all students and faculty in education or social work. It is an example of leftist puritanism and the worst sort of pc. Bravo to FIRE and the NAS.

   — William    Oct 26, 03:59 PM    #

3. Social justice does NOT imply a left-wing litmus test. I have an MSW and social justice meant working for social change, whatever that might be for you personally and for the clientele you serve. My program had students from all over the political spectrum and I never felt students on the “right” were ostracized by professors or peers. Social justice is NOT an ideology but a belief in one of the basic tenets of social work???

   — S.R.A.    Oct 27, 11:24 AM    #

4. There are different ways of looking at social justice. There are traditional Christian colleges that are accredited by CSWE. Do these groups really want social workers who don’t have a commitment to social justice? Oh, my!

   — L.G.    Oct 31, 11:13 AM    #

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