Fall 2026 Issue

Education: The CSWE and Heterodox Social Work
By Naomi Farber, PhD, MSW, and Nafees Alam, PhD, LMSW
Social Work Today
Vol. 26 No. 4 P. 8

How the CSWE’s Statement on Legislative Changes Is a Step Toward Embracing Viewpoint Diversity in Social Work Education

As social work educators committed to fostering academic freedom and critical thinking among future practitioners, we welcome the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) statement on legislative changes, issued on September 15, 2025.1 This statement addresses the evolving landscape of federal and state laws that impact diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) content in curricula. By emphasizing flexibility in accreditation standards and a commitment to preparing graduates for practice with diverse populations, CSWE signals a promising shift toward inclusivity that accommodates a broader range of perspectives. This development aligns with the growing demand for heterodox approaches in social work that prioritize viewpoint diversity, constructive disagreement, and open inquiry to strengthen our profession’s ability to navigate complex social issues.

The CSWE statement responds to legislation in several states that restricts or prohibits certain DEI-related content in higher education. Rather than mandating rigid compliance with specific curricular approaches in the current Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards, CSWE clarifies that its accreditation standards focus on educational outcomes. Programs must demonstrate that graduates possess the knowledge, values, skills, and cognitive processes necessary for professional practice with clients from all backgrounds. Importantly, the statement notes that accreditation does not require programs to violate local laws, providing a flexible framework for adaptation. CSWE encourages programs facing challenges to consult its resources and accreditation specialists for tailored support, with further guidance anticipated after the October 2025 Board of Accreditation meeting.

This statement should be deeply welcome because it affirms social work’s core values of the dignity of each individual, human rights, and social justice while allowing space for innovation and local context. In an era where ideological polarization can hinder effective education, CSWE’s de-emphasis on prescriptive methods opens the door for diverse pedagogical strategies. For instance, educators can now more confidently incorporate multiple viewpoints on topics like abortion, immigration, or wealth distribution, drawing from structural, individual, and community-based lenses. This flexibility not only ensures legal compliance but also enhances the profession’s capacity to produce well-rounded practitioners equipped to serve pluralistic societies.

“Heterodox Social Work: Advancing Viewpoint Diversity, Constructive Disagreement, and Open Inquiry,” published in Research on Social Work Practice in 2025,2 explores how such principles can revitalize social work education and scholarship. We argue that heterodoxy challenges intellectual conformity by encouraging engagement with differing perspectives, questioning dominant paradigms, and promoting intellectual humility. The formation of HxSocial Work, a community within Heterodox Academy, aims to apply these values to our field, counterbalancing the dominance of postmodern and critical theories with classical liberal approaches that value objectivity, falsifiability, and methodological transparency.

CSWE’s statement resonates with these heterodox ideas by affirming that accreditation standards will not prescribe specific DEI curricula or require demographic data submission. This stance implicitly welcomes a variety of interpretive frameworks, allowing educators to teach about systemic inequalities and inequities without elevating, indeed mandating binary oppressor-oppressed viewpoints or common-enemy worldviews. While critical perspectives have expanded our understanding of structural changes, their unchecked dominance can stifle open debate and alienate students with moderate, conservative, or diverse religious views.2 Studies cited in our work, such as those by Mirick and Davis3 and Sorenson et al,4 highlight how social work classrooms have sometimes belittled or excluded such viewpoints, despite a significant portion of social workers identifying as moderate (23.5%) or conservative (6.8%) according to Wathen et al.5

By providing guidance for programs to align standards with legislation, CSWE demonstrates a commitment to practical inclusivity. This is particularly timely as social work grapples with its “in-betweenness,” as described by Lorenz,6 requiring us to wrestle with ambiguity and conflicting positions to accommodate true human diversity. The statement’s focus on preparing graduates to work with “any and all backgrounds” underscores the need for curricula that model constructive disagreement through case studies, role-playing, and discussions on contentious issues like immigration or abortion without the a priori assumption of correct positions outside of the core humanistic values of the profession. Such practices build skills for engaging across differences without hostility, directly transferable to advocacy and intervention.

To build on this momentum, CSWE could further integrate viewpoint diversity into future iterations of the Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards beginning in 2029. In order to prevent political ideology from becoming a basis for social work practice, explicit language assessing programs for their ability to foster political diversity, for example, would ensure that classrooms honor a spectrum of perspectives associated with political positions. This would not diminish our commitment to social justice but enrich it by equipping students to collaborate across lines of difference. Professional associations, including NASW, could similarly promote heterodoxy through conferences and continuing education, featuring speakers from varied backgrounds to model respectful dialogue.

CSWE’s statement marks a vital step toward a more dynamic and inclusive social work education. By prioritizing outcomes and flexibility, it invites heterodox ideas into the mainstream, enhancing our profession’s ethical commitment to diversity. As educators and practitioners, let us seize this opportunity to advance viewpoint diversity, particularly political diversity, ensuring social work remains a beacon of open inquiry and collaborative progress.

— Naomi Farber, PhD, MSW, is professor emerita at the University of South Carolina College of Social Work. In her roles as director of the MSW and the Doctoral Program and as interim associate dean, she provided leadership in obtaining accreditation from the Council on Social Work Education. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of race and class in relation to experiences of adolescent pregnancy and parenthood and in patterns of family formation among low-income unmarried women. Other areas of scholarship include the rise of antisemitism and lack of viewpoint diversity in the social work academy.

– Nafees Alam, PhD, LMSW, is an award-winning professor specializing in nonprofit program evaluation and macro practice. Alam’s research agenda is self-determination in sport social work with a secondary focus on viewpoint diversity, open inquiry, and constructive disagreement in higher education. He has over 150 peer-reviewed and popular-press publications and serves on the editorial boards of Frontiers in Mental Health, Replications in Social Psychology, the Journal of Teaching in Social Work, Research on Social Work Practice, and the Sport Social Work Journal. He has presented at conferences worldwide, including four keynotes. He aims to disseminate ideas through many public platforms as a contributor to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Heterodox Academy, Minding the Campus, Inside Sources, Psychology Today, Real Clear Education, Open Therapy Institute, ProSocial Workers, Free Black Thought, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, the Academic Freedom Alliance, and the Institute for Liberal Values. He is passionate about global education through technology, teaching and designing online courses taught globally, along with his YouTube channel and podcast geared toward an international academic audience.

References
1. CSWE statement on legislative changes. Council on Social Work Education website. https://www.cswe.org/news/newsroom/cswe-statement-on-legislative-changes/. Published September 15, 2025.

2. Alam N, Rueda H. Heterodox social work: advancing viewpoint diversity, constructive disagreement, and open inquiry. Research on Social Work Practice. 2025;35(8):875-879.

3. Mirick RG, Davis A. Only liberal views welcome? The experiences of conservative BSW students. Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work. 2021;26(1):135-158.

4. Sorenson CJ, Jones T, Casey R. The in-class experience of social work students based on their political ideology. Social Work Education. 2024;43(9):1-20.

5. Wathen MV, Young RA, Krings A, Kilbane T. Predictors of political participation of US social workers: the mediating effect of confidence. Social Work Education. 2026;45(1):163-180.

6. Lorenz W. Re-positioning the social mandate of social work. Nordic Social Work Research. 2025;16(1):75-87.