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SPP Policy Memo PDF

This memorandum recommends that the CSWE adjust its accreditation standards for schools of social work in New York City. It summarizes efforts by three schools - Hunter Silberman, NYU Silver, and Columbia - to implement anti-racist curriculum in response to calls to address racism and oppression from 2005 and 2007. However, students continue to express that faculty need more training and schools need greater diversity. The memorandum recommends that CSWE require unconscious bias training for faculty every two years and the development of anti-racist foundation curriculum addressing white supremacy, anti-black racism, and anti-Semitism.

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335 views

SPP Policy Memo PDF

This memorandum recommends that the CSWE adjust its accreditation standards for schools of social work in New York City. It summarizes efforts by three schools - Hunter Silberman, NYU Silver, and Columbia - to implement anti-racist curriculum in response to calls to address racism and oppression from 2005 and 2007. However, students continue to express that faculty need more training and schools need greater diversity. The memorandum recommends that CSWE require unconscious bias training for faculty every two years and the development of anti-racist foundation curriculum addressing white supremacy, anti-black racism, and anti-Semitism.

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TO: Andrew W. Safyer


Chair
CSWE Commission on Accreditation

FROM: Jonathan Chang


MSW Candidate (’19)
Columbia University School of Social Work

RE: Anti-Racist Accreditation Standards for NYC Schools of Social Work

The purpose of this memorandum is to recommend a series of changes to current CSWE


accreditation policies that promote inclusion, equity, social and economic justice, and the
integration of knowledge of human diversity. Based on the organizing efforts of social work
students at New York University Silver School of Social Work, Columbia University School of
Social Work, and Hunter Silberman School of Social Work, schools of social work in New York
City have made adjustments to their curriculum to ensure that current students and graduates are
prepared to undo the harmful effects of institutionalized racism throughout their social work
careers. I recommend that CSWE adjust their accreditation standards for schools of social work
in New York City by requiring (1) all administrators, professors, and teaching assistants
attend unconscious bias trainings once every two years and (2) schools must develop anti-
racist curriculum for foundation level coursework with an emphasis on addressing white
supremacy, anti-black racism, and anti-Semitism.

In 2005, 400 social work thought leaders came together for a Social Work Congress convened by
the National Association for Social Workers (NASW), the National Association of Deans and
Directors, CSWE, and other cosponsoring organizations. In an effort to address racism through
education and practice, the Social Work Congress identified two imperatives:

§ Address the effect of racism, other forms of oppression, social injustice, and other human
rights violations through social work education and practice.
§ Consciously acknowledge, recognize, confront, and address pervasive racism within
social work practice at the individual, agency, and institutional levels. [1]

In 2007, NASW published a call to action led by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond
[2] in response to the Social Work Congress. The call to action charged individual social workers
to recognize the impact of systemic racism on their personal and professional lives and to use
that awareness to influence all aspects of social work practice. The call also charged social work
associations, like NASW and CSWE, to commit to promote change within the profession.

As a response to this call to action, a think tank symposium was convened under the NASW
Social Policy Institute in November 2013. The symposium, Achieving Racial Equity: Calling the
Social Work Profession to Action [3], argued that the imperatives set out in 2005 have yet to be
fully actualized. In 2018, CSWE has yet to answer both calls to action set out by the Social Work
Congress and the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. Individual schools of social work,
through efforts led by students and faculty members, have embraced and followed this call to
action in the following ways:
2

Hunter Silberman School of Social Work


Anti-Racist Curriculum Implemented: Fall 2012
Wins: The City University of New York (CUNY) Hunter Silberman School of Social Work
adjusted their curriculum to incorporate the Social Work Practice Learning Lab I course.
Criticisms: NOT AVAILABLE YET [Still finding sources]

New York University Silver School of Social Work


Anti-Racist Curriculum Implemented: Fall 2012
Wins: In Spring 2010, the Racial Diversity Town Hall Coalition at the NYU Silver School of
Social Work addressed a racial diversity student proposal to the administration [4]. The
coalition outlined changes that the administration should make to address the school’s
hostile environment for students of color and deficient social work education due to the
lack of attention to racial justice. NYU Silver School of Social Work overhauled their
Ethnocultural Course into their present Diversity, Racism, Oppression, and Privilege
course designed to help social work students work more effectively with clients from
diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds.
Criticisms: Despite the curriculum shift, students in Spring 2018 organized a call to action that
garnered 465 signatures from students, alumni, faculty, and community members [5].
They asserted that while the school has shown improvements, faculty training, the
makeup of faculty body, curriculum, and school climate continues to be deficient.

Columbia University School of Social Work


Anti-Racist Curriculum Implemented: Fall 2017
Wins: Students of color and white allies at Columbia University School of Social Work wrote a
list of demands in 2015 addressed to the school administration in response to trauma
experienced by students of color within the school [6]. The administration responded by
implementing their Foundations of Social Work course entitled: Foundations of Social
Work Practice: Decolonizing Social Work.
Criticisms: A current MSW student who had gone through the new course published an op-ed in
the Columbia Spectator calling on CSSW to change their current practice of omitting the
Jewish identity and experience from anti-racist and anti-oppressive curriculum [7]. The
school is currently in the process of evaluating the new curriculum.

In reviewing the experiences each social work degree conferring administration faces while
adjusting their curriculum to meet the demands of students of color, the needs of the social work
profession, and our clients, we can see that each model has adjusted their foundation-year
curriculum. In each case, however, students continue to express that faculty are not properly
prepared to facilitate the new coursework as a result of a lack of faculty training, the lack of
representation from professors of color, and the investment in anti-oppressive curriculum. Given
that it has been 13 years since the Social Work Congress had met and identified this as an
imperative for our profession, I recommend that CSWE adjusts their accreditation standards and
mandate that (1) all administrators, professors, and teaching assistants attend unconscious
bias trainings once every two years and (2) schools must develop anti-racist curriculum for
foundation level coursework with an emphasis on addressing white supremacy, anti-black
racism, and anti-Semitism.
3

APPENDIX

Cost Benefit Analysis

Benefits
Direct Indirect
Tangible
Intangible

Costs
Direct Indirect
Tangible
Intangible
4

[1]
http://www.socialworkgatherings.com/Social%20Work%20Imperatives%20for%20the%20Next
%20Decade.pdf

[2] https://www.socialworkers.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=SWK1aR53FAk%3D&portalid=0

[3] http://www.socialworkpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/SWPI-Racial-Equity-
Report.pdf

[4]
https://actionnetwork.org/user_files/user_files/000/023/094/original/Racial_Diversity_Town_Hal
l_Coalition_Proposal.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1lDrs2JKP9xwg3hBFd7nqjLPmreEEQpi7GN0XOQhHo
chEAcTDJ1i-UgTI

[5] https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/call-to-action-to-for-social-justice-at-nyu-
silver?fbclid=IwAR1fN5C-
0tE55gALnW0Dkt3C4jjoFBCfjQRg_7aedmWRikp9CELMz2MpO00

[6] https://www.change.org/p/columbia-school-of-social-work-petition-in-support-of-the-
demands-of-many-cssw-students-of-color-and-their-allies

[7] https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2018/11/13/the-anti-semitism-intersectionality-
gap/

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