Social Justice
Our Social Justice Priorities
Five social justice priorities serve as guiding principles for NASW's national office and Chapters:
Learn more about NASW's social justice priorities >>
Social Justice Briefs
President Trump’s recent executive order (EO) terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives is a shattering setback for communities of color, the disabled, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women. By dismantling policies designed to promote equal opportunities and create diverse workplaces that look like America, this order undermines decades of progress toward a more inclusive society. The aggressive and almost gleeful announcement by President Trump demonstrates his absence of concern about the divisive implications of his decision on a national level. It is more likely that the president’s eagerness to roll out his DEI executive order on “day one” is rooted in both the politics of pleasing his base and his own personal antagonism toward righting the wrongs of past racial, gender, and sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace.
As we prepare for the transition to power of the incoming Trump administration, there is near certainty that critical and essential safety-net policies and programs— Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — are in serious jeopardy of major budget cuts and diluted protections. These programs serve over 83 million Americans . Moreover, the services and financial assistance provided support millions of vulnerable people— including communities of color, low-income people, senior citizens.
As advocates for vulnerable and marginalized populations, social workers are stakeholders —along with like-minded organizations — in keeping the social safety net intact. If left unchallenged, the planned huge cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will leave a gaping hole in the safety net.
With the return of Donald Trump to the presidency, the struggle against a national mass deportation program has reached a level of urgency. This is because the day-one priority of the new Trump administration — and that of the Republican led Congress —is to radically change immigration laws and policies. Chief among those actions will be to expeditiously move forward with the administration’s Mass Deportation Program.
With that in mind, NASW ‘s social justice brief — Near Certain Cataclysmic Consequences of a Mass Deportation Program — has been prepared to help social workers to gain an in-depth understanding about the nature and consequences of deporting as many as 15 million people.
The Heritage Foundation’s Presidential Transition Project, also known as Project 2025, seeks to fundamentally reshape federal government policies across various sectors, including social safety nets, civil rights, and environmental protection. This initiative poses a substantial threat to social justice, as it also includes measures that would roll back regulatory protections, reduce social welfare programs, and dismantle the federal civil service system. This policy brief examines the potential impacts of Project 2025 and both the far-reaching consequences for vulnerable populations and the broader implications for social equity and justice.
Social workers have long held the value and the importance of collaboration, community-building, unity, and social justice, and the notion that an attack on one community is an attack on all communities. No one – no individual, no family, no community and no society - is safe when discrimination, prejudice, injustice, and hatred towards any group or groups is allowed to flourish. And yet that is the very circumstance in which we find ourselves today.
As with racial gerrymandering, voter intimidation as a tool for disenfranchisement is not new. Like gerrymandering, voter intimidation can be traced directly back to the end of Reconstruction, which ushered in the Jim Crow era. The Compromise of 1877 was an off-the-record deal between southern Democrats and representatives for the Republican presidential candidate (Rutherford Hayes) to settle the disputed 1876 presidential election. The southerners threw their support behind Hayes and, in return, Hayes withdrew federal troops from South Carolina and Louisiana—effectively ending Reconstruction in those states and the rest of the South. The end of Reconstruction immediately resulted in southern legislatures passing a series of laws requiring the separation of whites from “persons of color,” soon known as the “Jim Crow laws.”
The political turmoil that has engulfed the country in recent days is unsettling, frightening, and to many, unlike anything experienced in modern times. The closest parallel is perhaps the political atmosphere that existed in the decade leading up to the Civil War. Like the national divide in pre–Civil War America, the tensions today are not simply philosophical differences. We are seeing a deeply felt battle over America’s, existence and the outcome could lead to the end of democracy as we know it.
Policing in America has a long history of preserving the violent legacy of slavery and upholding white supremacy. The tragic and unjust murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Aubrey, Tony McDade, Eric Garner, and so many other Black and Brown Americans by police officers has led our nation to reexamine the systems that we look to for safety and justice.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is exponentially increased among those on the margins of our society. Therefore, it is critical that these families and individuals included in federal and state governments’ efforts to fight the spread of COVID-19, and that they are protected from related social and civic disruptions that will occur as the virus spreads.