Transgender protest about YMCA locker rooms

  The article “State Freedom Caucus holds presser, blasts YMCA over transgender policy” described one policy issue that caused a lot of controversy. This was a locker room policy at the Kerasotes YMCA. Two months ago, a 16-year-old girl Abbigail Wheeler and her family protested over the fact that the YMCA allow transgender people to use the same locker room that matches with their identity. And this issue came across due to an incident of when Wheeler went into the locker room and saw a transgender woman there, and was uncomfortable about potentially seeing that person change out of their swimsuit. Although she was not exposed to the transgender woman’s genitals, the situation did make Abbigail Wheeler uncomfortable. 

Abbigail’s father, Dan Wheeler spoke at the rally and was quoted in news media as saying: “ Rather, we stand here today in unity to advocate for all the families that drop their children off at the YMCA in Springfield, by bringing awareness to a flawed policy based on, my opinion, of improper interpretation of current state statute that allows children to be potentially exposed to individuals of the opposite biological sex in the girls’ locker rooms.” On the news, after mentioning the rally, the coach was quoted as saying that there “was nothing they could do by Illinois state law.” Also, someone from the YMCA said that if she was uncomfortable then she could use the family locker rooms or she could change at home, and that she did not need to use the facilities used by the trans woman. The Illinois human rights act prohibits businesses or in this case recreational centers, from denying or refusing the “full and equal enjoyment of facilities, goods, and services” solely based on someone’s gender identity according to the Illinois Department of Human Rights website.” On the other hand, Abigail and her teammates did send a hate speech message towards the trans community by posting signs like “Biological women only” and “men are not welcome here” on the door to the women’s locker room. That is showing bad behavior on their part as well. 

Both the news and the article showed how there are major flaw in the YMCA policy, specifically when it comes to both women’s privacy and safety. Even though, I agree that any sort of discrimination towards the trans community is wrong and should not be tolerated as stated by the federal laws. “There are still policies that need to be put in place. Overall, one policy to avoid more outcomes and or issues of this from appearing could be by giving transgendered persons their own bathrooms based off their identity. So, it will allow them to feel comfortable in their own spaces and for the biological sex to not be uncomfortable as well. Or another way to solve this without it being overly expensive is to have personal stalls in locker rooms for the protection of others’ privacy. 

Reference

https://www.nprillinois.org/equity-justice/2023-07-14/state-freedom-caucus-holds-presser-blasts-ymca-over-transgender-policy

https://www.nprillinois.org/equity-justice/2016-07-14/illinois-issues-the-battle-over-transgender-rights-in-the-bathroom-and-beyond 

https://www.reddit.com/r/SpringfieldIL/comments/14yx9e2/some_truth_comes_out_about_the_y_scandal/

This seems like an ethical dilemma. Abbigail Wheeler and her parents and politiicans of the Freedom caucus are appealing to a purity ethic about two things: they are claiming that transgender women are still men, and they are saying that women in changing rooms and showers of a YMCA have a right to be in sex-segregated situations where no men will be mixed with them. The law and most of us are claiming that transgender women are essentially women, and should be treated no differently from other women. We are saying that excluding transgendered women from women's locker rooms and showers and bathrooms would violate their human rights and civil rights. 

There are a variety of circumstances that give rise to persons who are not easily placed into categories of male or female (e.g., intersex conditions at birth).  Likewise, slight mutations in a fetus can alter how they respond to certain hormones, so that persons with a brain of one gender might have genitals of another gender. One project embraced by most progressive people is to reframe the categories and constructs related to male and female, masculine and feminine, suggesting these can be vague or flexible. A counter project embraced by many conservative people is to claim that gender is immutable and clearly defined, so that everyone (or nearly everyone) belongs in one of two categories, and will remain in whatever category they were born into for their entire life. 

Most of the conflicts arise from assumptions and definitions about what we mean when we say someone is a "female" or a "male" person. 

At any rate, I prefer private stalls for changing and so forth.  It's slightly awkward in a gym or pool locker room when taking showers in a communal shower or changing out of a swimsuit with other people around. I only find it slightly awkward, and have never been particularly uncomfortable about it, but I can tell that some people find this sort of thing extremely disturbing, and if they happen to fear that someone of the other gender will see them, and they old traditional binary attitudes about gender, they are going to be feeling hurt by policies such as we have in Illinois. Perhaps the solution is the one you suggested, where we use private stalls for changing. 

Student discusses privilege and racism

I am not a stranger to my privilege. For the longest time, I struggled with white guilt. I hated myself because I did not look like my friends, my parents were not like my friends’ parents, my family did not have to struggle like my friends and their families. I hated myself because the people who looked like me hated my friends. The majority of my extended family talked down about the people who were just like my friends, my step-siblings, my adopted siblings, etc... The overwhelming majority of the people who look like me openly support a man who threatens every single piece of my life. When we discussed liberal ideologies in class, I really identified with the excerpt that said that the liberal cannot be content with what they have when what they have means that someone else isn’t getting it as well. 

In the $2.00 A Day book, the authors said that a white person could send out three applications for a call back, but a black person has to send out six or more resumes in order to receive a call back. We read that part of the book a few weeks ago, but it is still echoing in my mind. One time, I applied for three jobs and was interviewed for two of them, and then I had to decide which one to accept and which one to turn down, and that was just in high school. More recently, I went for an interview to be a tutor at a school, and walked out with an additional position as an Activities Specialist for a Boys and Girls Club after-school program. In class, we discussed that affirmative action in university admissions existed for only a short time, and as soon as one white dude sued because he didn’t get admitted, affirmative action ended (in 1978’s Regents of the University of California v. Bakke 438 U.S. 265 and 1996’s Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F.3d 932). As soon as Affirmative Action ended, there was a decrease in the rate of black college attendance and a decline in the growth of African-Americans entering higher-paying professions. Affirmative Action evened the playing field (Cross & Slater, 1999). If the difference between a black student having a teacher who looks like me is affirmative action, then so be it. Similarly, the book $2 a Day also drew attention to the different scale of problems for white and black men with a felony on their record. White men with a felony are more likely to receive a job than black men without a felony. Black Americans make 12-13% of the U.S. population, yet there are slightly more black people in prison and jails than their white counterparts. The school to prison pipeline is brought up many times in class because the education system is not equal, and unfortunately, diverse schools tend to be poorer. 

A comment that I made one day in class after watching the movie “I, Daniel Blake” is “What do people get out of being assholes?” It is because of the illusion of power that someone might have. It makes me think of the book Why Are They Angry At Us? from last semester when Larry E. Davis said that white people continue to treat blacks horribly because they are afraid that the blacks will get into power and treat them how they treated the blacks for so long. The idea that people have to rationalize and justify their racism to keep a socially constructed pedestal is just sickening to me. 

It is scientifically proven that racism and discrimination exist, but people dismiss it so easily because they don’t want to acknowledge it. In addition to the study mentioned before, there have been other studies where actors of different races go to buy a car or house; every time, the people of color were given a higher price than their white counterparts, and in some of the older studies, the people of color were even turned away. Going back even further to the Clark Doll Experiments (run by Kenneth and Mamie Clark in the 1940s), which I talk about a lot, this study showed the negative effects of segregation and pervasive racism. This phenomenon, empirically recorded in the 1940s, is still happening today. My seven-year-old sister has said many times that she wishes to be white and prefers to play with light skinned dolls. I try to combat this by saying things like “I want you to braid my hair like yours” when she plays with my hair and “Where’s your barbie with pink hair? I want to play with her” referring to a black barbie with a pink afro. We are now in 2020. 

If reparations were successfully implemented during the Reconstruction Era instead of the creation of Jim Crow laws and the likes of that, then I really believe that this country would not be in the state that it is. We would’ve had a better infrastructure to work with. My AP US History high school teacher said that many people who fall into the category of racist and conservative argue that people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but black Americans never had any bootstraps to do so, and I would say that many still don’t. If true equality was given during the Reconstruction Era, then maybe white people wouldn’t be so set on enforcing policies that don’t give parents enough time off of work when their child are born, don’t help parents pay for high quality daycare while they go to work, don’t give schools the same resources to work with, etc... I don’t know why people talk about the American dream because as long as the country has been founded, it has worked to drive people apart. 

I don’t struggle with my identity as much as I used to. I like to say that “I am nothing, and I am everything.” I have grown up around so many different types of people, who aren’t just “black” or aren’t just “gay” or aren’t just “latino.” So I am more than just “white.” I try to help people realize their privilege, starting with my family. I don’t know if that will ever happen, but I know that at the end of the day, I will be an ally, not an asshole. 

Reference:

Cross, T., & Slater, R. (1999). Only the Onset of Affirmative Action Explains the Explosive Growth in Black Enrollments in Higher Education. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, (23), 110-115. doi:10.2307/2999332

A student objects to rules blocking refugees and visitors from certain countries, preventing them from coming to the USA

Early in his presidency, President Trump twice tried to temporarily halt entrance into the United States by all refugees and all persons from a handful of selected nations. In both cases, courts put restraining orders to present the executive orders from being enforced. The policy was controversial, and the student who wrote this reaction paper was very displeased by the policy, mainly because it seemed immoral, inhumane, and unjust.

In light of recent political events, everyone has an opinion on the new president’s love of signing executive orders, a process that he criticized the last president for doing. One recent order that has gotten international attention would be the now popular “Muslim Ban”. He named this executive order “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States”. In this order, he banned the travel and migration of citizens from the countries of Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, and Syria. The order also stopped the re-entry of legal residents (with green cards) from coming back into the country. After this order was signed, millions revolted in opposition to this decision. While there were some in favor, it seemed as if the opposition was much louder and more vocal. People protested in airports, in the streets, and in front of the White House to show their dislike of the ban. 

My reaction to this is that this is a good way for us to have our tails in between our legs and run away scared. President Trump’s whole campaign played on the fear of Americans and he made promises that he intends to keep. I find it also hilarious that this is happening because this country’s history has been filled by people fleeing their home countries to find sanctuary here. The English Puritans, the Irish during the Irish Potato Famine, the radicals of Europe after the Revolutions of 1848, the Jews of Russia and Eastern Europe after pogroms, and the Vietnamese after the Vietnam War have all fled their homes and families to live in a peaceful world. This country has a monument that commemorates the tired, the poor, and the “yearning to breathe free”. One country in this ban is in almost total ruin due to a civil war and they would not like to live there anymore. Why should we deny millions access to come here based on actions of what a very few people did to us?

Going off of that, yes, there were attacks done on to the American people and these attacks had radical Islam roots. But also take into consideration, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt are not on this list and all of these countries had people tied to them and they carried out the attacks. The 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia. The man who was the United States most wanted was not from any of the banned countries. So why aren’t these countries banned? A point may be that there is more travel or refugee traffic coming from the seven countries and not so much the three I gave in the beginning in this paragraph. Well maybe the citizens from those three countries are not in a civil war or in any hurry to better their lives unlike the other seven countries. 

There have been arguments made from the supporting side. They say that this is not a Muslim ban, this is just a travel ban. They also say that these countries have been on the Obama administration’s watch list too. Others say that this is just for four months so that we can work out the vetting process, which is already time consuming enough. To me and to others, this is just a way to brush off the blame to something else or justify closing our borders. For some refugees, the vetting can take up to a year when they wanted to leave the country yesterday. This is just not fair that now we can stop and pick and choose who we want to come into our country for the next four months. 

In final thoughts, I think that this action is immoral, inhumane, and unjust to those who need our help the most. 

Some of the other arguments in favor of the travel ban, which you didn’t list, include: 

1. if we bring in too many people from regions where the culture is different from ours, those immigrants or refugees may not assimilate, and may not respect our values, so they will threaten our culture.
2. we ought to reduce immigration anyway, for various reasons (for example, we ought to maintain a stable population and not experience population growth because a growing population is not environmentally sustainable, or immigrants will bring values and views that will undermine American values and subvert our culture, or immigrants will drive down wages of American workers because they will compete in the labor market).  
3. Although there is a very slight risk that a terrorist will sneak into our country from one of the countries listed in the travel ban, the government’s responsibility is to reduce the risk as low as possible, and having no immigration from those countries except for exceptional cases will reduce risk of terrorism more than generally allowing immigration from those countries with normal vetting.

Some other arguments against the ban, which you didn’t list, include:

1. We are working with people in these countries, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some of those local people who are our allies may lose trust in us if we ban them from visiting the USA.  For example, will local people ever want to cooperate with the American military (working on bases, acting as translators) if they know that America may ban them from ever entering the USA or coming as refugees if the American’s leave and the political situation in their homeland becomes dangerous for them?
2. The current vetting process works perfectly well, and there is already zero chance that refugees from the banned countries will come here as terrorists. Most American terrorists were radicalized after arriving in the USA and becoming American citizens, but native-born Americans are just as likely to be radicalized into terrorism as immigrants who come as refugees, and if refugees come from families that are fleeing radical so-called “Islamist” groups or governments, their family background will be far more likely to make them loyal Americans who might help us monitor and understand the situation in their land of origin. 
3. The argument against allowing refugees from certain countries into the USA only examines the potential harms, and has not taken into account the potential benefits. Maybe 1-in-100,000 refugees will be murderers or terrorists, but 100-in-100,000 will be life-saving doctors or life-saving police officers or life-saving military heroes in our armed forces.  Excluding these refugees would make us lose the benefits as well as avoid the harms. 

Sundown Towns in brief.

Sundown Towns

Today in Illinois, there is estimated to be at least 500 sundown towns.  I have always heard that my home town of Pekin was one, but really never knew the history, until now. I mean, we did have the Pekin Chinks [the name of the school team was “chinks” rather than “railsplitters” or “trojans” or “tornadoes” or something like that]; nothing weird about that.  I did have one black girl in my graduating class; that’s about right; isn't it?  Even today, our football team does not play Peoria teams because of the racism involved; only white teams for us!

A sundown town is any organized town or jurisdiction that keeps African Americans or other minorities out;  or keeps towns all white, on purpose.   Many times it was done by force, such as chasing or harassing minorities out of town, and sometimes it would be done informally.  African Americans just knew not to come to Pekin.  Before 1968, my town would have signs at the entrance that stated:  N* Don't Let the Sun Go down on you in Pekin.  I have always heard the police would run blacks out of town if they were found; but, I have never seen this happen, this was just common knowledge.   As of 1968, the federal government passed the Civil Rights Act; commonly referred to as the “Fair Housing Act”. The action of keeping blacks out of communities went underground after that.  Sundown Towns had to take their signs down, and harass minorities informally.  

I thought this was interesting; in 1940, Victor Green wrote the “Negro Motorist Green Book.”  Victor Green was a travel agent in 1940.  He wrote a guide book that gave Blacks a way to avoid Sundown Towns when they traveled; which included hotels, taverns, garages, night-clubs, restaurants, and service-stations where Black readers of the guide would be warned of hostility and danger or assured a welcome in safety.

Sundown Towns varied in size, from very tiny Ava, IL which has 662 people to Arlington Heights, IL with has 76,000 people.    

Many communities remain all white today; whether blacks can live at ease and comfortable within them, I feel, that I remain doubtful.    

I am glad you have addressed this topic, and being from Pekin, a notorious sundown town, it is especially gratifying to know that you investigated James Loewen's website and/or book on the topic.  My own experience with this was one that involved my exposure to racism in housing and culture in stages.  As a young child growing up in a very progressive family in southern California, I did not notice racism, and had very little understanding of it.  As a child growing up in Indianapolis, I was not yet in a place that had quite the history of racial discrimination, although I remember my parents marking with scorn that the Elks Club near our neighborhood was a prejudiced place that would not allow African-Americans to join (this was in the 1970s).  By the time I was in middle school, I was exposed to several some very progressive teachers (Jack Monninger and Fred Farrell stand out in my memory) who taught things that were not in textbooks (about a Ku Klux Klan governor in Indiana, or the discrimination against veterans who were African-American or Hispanic).  Then, when I moved to Saint Louis in 1982 as a 14-year-old, I encountered the strange southern legacy... Missouri had been a slave state, and it seemed very different from Indiana.  I remember once riding on a greyhound bus from Indianapolis to Saint Louis, how the (African-American) woman next to me explained to me that when she had been a girl and her family rode the bus to Saint Louis, the rule had been that all the African-American passengers had to move to the back of the bus when they crossed the Mississippi and entered Missouri.  In Saint Louis I met classmates and adults who possessed quaint notions of virulent race hatred and base racism of the worst kind.  African-American friends and a Native American friend told me about towns in Missouri that were "no go" places for them.  A Jewish friend mentioned how her family had been essentially chased out of Sullivan, Missouri.  I remember getting physically ill when exposed to some of these overtly racist persons who seemed obsessed with their prejudices against a whole class of people.  But this was all over 30 years ago.  I really do wonder what has changed in the attitudes of some of these people, if anything.  

Of course, now as an adult I know more about how to address prejudice and racism when it is exhibited around me.  And, having lived as a racial minority (among Africans in Kenya; among East Asians in Taiwan and China), I have a better sense of what it is like to be a minority, although I can't experience being a member of an historically oppressed minority unless I try to go live in Iran and flaunt my religious identity there. Still, I must admit, the struggle to end racism and deconstruct prejudices has not been the main cause in my life.  I care about it, and have been involved to some degree, but it is a more difficult challenge than, for example, trying to end the deprivation of poverty.  I continue to believe that the main way to reduce prejudices is to increase cooperative contact across races, getting people with different backgrounds to work together for common goals, so that natural friendships and alliances build from that.  Then, I expect natural friendships to develop, and from that, prejudice to be reduced.  I've had some interest in the intellectual movements against prejudices, including the post-modernists, the feminists, the LGBTQ social critics, the political radicals, the leftist or anarchist counter-cultures, and some of the more progressive religious movements (I would count mainstream Western Islam here as one of those). The recent rhetoric after the election of Trump has not surprised me, and I'm sort of glad to see more of the hidden things come out into the light of day where we can see how people really feel.  There have been some problems in the grand strategies and rhetoric and thought processes used by intellectuals in the struggle against prejudices, and I hope that the era we now enter will see more of the anti-racist work take a more practical and applied direction.  We shall see.

Profiling of African Americans by Law Enforcement

This is a student's reaction essay, the sort of thing where a student spends an hour just writing whatever they like about an issue connected with social welfare and policy:

    Racial profiling has long been a problem in our society. In many ways we have become better within the past twenty years or so. Unfortunately, our society still has a long way to go as you will see from the examples within this paper of the racial profiling that African Americans still endure today by law enforcement.

    Racial profiling can be defined “as an act of enforcement by police officers that are more motivated by racial bias of any reasonable suspicion or probable cause that may exist under the circumstances. It is also referred to as the practice of targeting African Americans for traffic stops because the officer(s) seem to believe that blacks are more likely to engage in some kind of criminal activity” (Grant & Byers, 2009). This practice of racial profiling is not only done by police officers, but also by various others forms of law enforcement. “Law enforcement agent includes a person acting in a policing capacity for public or private purposes. This includes security guards at department stores, airport security agents, police officers, or, more recently, airline pilots who have ordered passengers to disembark from flights, because the passengers' ethnicity aroused the pilots' suspicions. Members of each of these occupations have been accused of racial profiling.” (ACLU, 2005).

Those committing racial profiling are more numerous than most would expect. Most individuals would only expect police officers and those working in airports to racially profile. We can see now that this is not the case. Those of the African American race do not only experience racial profiling in their cars on our highways by law enforcement, but also while on a simple shopping excursion. “The targeting of shoppers/business patrons of color for suspicion of shoplifting by private security and other employees has disproportionately affected both working and prominent African-American women. TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey said she was refused buzz-in entry to a store even after seeing white women admitted and making a second attempt. After calling from a pay phone and being assured the store was in fact open, a third try failed as well” (ACLU, 2005).

This is blatant racial profiling. Many prominent individuals are stopped, searched, or suspected of crimes based solely on their color of their skin. The article written by Harris states that no matter what a minority races status of life, transportation, or their willingness to abide by the law is they are subject to being stopped by police and their race used as “evidence” against them. (Harris, 1999). Another article also mentioned this same situation; they referred to it as racial vulnerability.  “As a result of racial vulnerability, a black man is more likely to have several encounters with police. During these encounters, the officer(s) may ask the man to show his identification for proof, have him explain where he is traveling to and from, and the officer(s) also may ask if he uses, distributes, or even manufactures any drugs.” (Grant & Byers, 2009).

Racial profiling largest stage is on our roads. On the interstates and highways of the United States is where some of the largest violations of minorities’ rights are violated. Many wonder if this is such a big problem, why is it continuing. Surely our laws provide some protection. In a way they do. “One of the core principles of the Fourth Amendment is that the police cannot stop and detain an individual without some reason – probable cause, or at least reasonable suspicion – to believe that he or she is involved in criminal activity. But recent Supreme Court decisions allow the police to use traffic stops as a pretext in order to "fish" for evidence. Both anecdotal and quantitative data show that nationwide, the police exercise this discretionary power primarily against African Americans and Latinos.” (Harris, 1999). The law enforcement of our nation often abuse this practice. They will stop and search anyone based on their color to “fish” for evidence as Harris put it. Most often the law enforcement officials are not “fishing” for evidence because they believe that individual to have some sort of contraband because of their actions. Rather they search them and “fish” for evidence because they are racially profiling them. 

Racial profiling does not just affect those believed to be committing crimes based on their skin color. It also affects those trying to assert basic human rights such as voting in a presidential election. “Untold numbers, estimated to be in the thousands, were not given affidavit ballots that would preserve their votes pending resolution of any qualification issues. Even the state NAACP president was denied one until she stated her willingness to be jailed over the issue.

Most serious were the hundreds of reports, in African-American communities, of state police harassment of voters at polling places and traffic checkpoints, where they lined up cars, checking driving papers and inspecting vehicles. Racial profiling at its worst, this tactic appeared to be designed to delay and intimidate voters of color.” (ACLU, 2005). These individuals were purposely targeted because of the color of their skin. Many were denied their American right to vote. This was in the 2000 presidential election. Less than 12 years ago members of the African American race were being treated very similar to how they were treated when they first received the right to vote. In this election they were not terrorized by the Klu Klux Klan but by our own law enforcement officers.

    The age of an individual being racial profiled by our law enforcement is one thing that law enforcement officers do not discriminate on. Young or old they may stop you simply because of the color of your skin. Some youth in Michigan learned this first hand. " In April, 2001, the ACLU joined a suit against Eastpointe, Michigan , representing 21 young African-American men who were stopped by the police while riding their bikes there. The ACLU argued that the bicyclists were stopped in this predominantly white suburb of Detroit because of their race and not because they were doing anything wrong. In a 1996 memorandum to the Eastpointe City Manager, the former police chief stated that he instructed his officers to investigate any black youths riding through Eastpointe subdivisions. Police searched many of young men and, in some cases, seized and later sold their bicycles. Police logs and reports in Eastpointe have identified over 100 incidents between 1995 and 1998 in which African-American youth were detained.” (ACLU, 2005).

The state police of Maryland took no pity on an elderly African American couple when they pulled them over and searched them extensively. “In Maryland, in 1997, Charles and Etta Carter, an elderly African American couple from Pennsylvania, were stopped by Maryland State Police on their 40th wedding anniversary. The troopers searched their car and brought in drug-sniffing dogs. During the course of the search, their daughter's wedding dress was tossed onto one of the police cars and, as trucks passed on I-95, it was blown to the ground. Mrs. Carter was not allowed to use the restroom during the search because police officers feared that she would flee. Their belongings were strewn along the highway, trampled and urinated on by the dogs. No drugs were found and no ticket was issued.” (Harris, 1999). Law enforcement officers treated these elderly couple like criminals. They had done nothing wrong, had done nothing to instigate the stop other than ‘driving while black’.

    How long will we as a society stand for this? To what point will we watch individuals be treated in such a vile, unconstitutional manner? Many of these people are hardworking, good, honest people who are being judged and violated with searches of their property simply because of the color of their skin. As we all know an individual’s race does not make them a criminal. We need to instill this idea in our children and fellow human beings. Everyone deserves a fair shake in life. 


References
Grant, K., & Byers, T. (2009). Missouri western state university. Retrieved from http://clearinghouse.missouriwestern.edu/manuscripts/403.php
In Text (Grant & Byers, 2009)

Harris, D. (1999, June 7). American civil liberties union. Retrieved from http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/driving-while-black-racial-profiling-our-nations-highways
In text (Harris, 1999)

ACLU. (2005, Nov. 23). American civil liberties union. Retrieved from http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/racial-profiling-definition
In text (ACLU, 2005)

A student reaction paper on social work education and ethics

I found George F. Will’s article from the Washington Post, “Code of Coercion” quite interesting. Some good points are brought up in the article such as whether or not a certain field or program of education should even come with a so called set of ideological “rules”. Sure there are codes of ethics and guidelines for conduct in most professions, but these are not absolute, and surely don’t mean the same thing to everyone.

Yes, there are four main questions I think we need to consider. 1) Are there ideological rules in the NASW code of ethics? 2) Should there be ideological rules in the NASW code of ethics? 3) If there should be ideological rules in the NASW code of ethics, does the code of ethics have the right rules, is it missing some, and does it have some that should not be included? 4) Are social work students supposed to subscribe to the NASW code of ethics, or merely be familiar with it?

The answers are: 1) yes, there are ideological rules in the NASW code of ethics. 2) Yes, there ought to be ideological rules, because professions have ideologies (or at least they ought to have ideologies). For example, in medical ethics doctors must subscribe to an ideology that they will do no harm to a patient. That is why ethical physicians will not assist in administering the poisons in lethal injection executions, although they will certify that a condemned prisoner has died. This is an ideology that doctors must preserve and protect the life and health of their patients, because by definition, that is what doctors do. Social workers should also have an ideology that defines what it is that social workers do, or ought to do. 3) The question of whether the NASW code of ethics includes the correct rules is one that is debatable, and is in fact debated within social work. I personally don’t object to any specific ideological rules in the present form of the code of ethics, but I think in certain places emphasis is misplaced, and I would change it in some ways, because I think it could be improved. There could be a substantial discussion of which values or ideologies in the code of ethics are in fact objectionable or wrong. George Will did not engage in such a discussion, so his contribution is not useful on that score. As I read it, the NASW code of ethics is not especially objectionable, and I struggle to understand how a fair-minded person familiar with the role of social work in society could object to the ideology enshrined in the code of ethics. 4) Social work students must be familiar with the code of ethics. They must be familiar with it in part because if they violate certain points of the code of ethics they could be punished or disciplined.

I have intimate familiarity with three schools of social work, and at none of these three were students required to subscribe to the code of ethics or make any sort of statement of belief or values in which they endorsed the NASW code of ethics. In fact, I had a Catholic field supervisor in my own MSW training who emphasized ethics as one of his top priorities, but told me he was not a member of NASW and would not become a member because he did not agree with 100% of the NASW code of ethics, and so he instead belonged to other professional social worker associations. The ideologically controversial portions of the NASW code of ethics are not the points that would be brought up and used against a social worker in a disciplinary setting. That is, no one objects to the ideology around duties to clients and professional responsibilities to clients, and that is the part of the ethical code where violations can land you in trouble. It is in the more broadly-worded exhortations for social workers to believe in and advocate for certain types of things that some people take issue, and these are not the sort of ethical rules where violations do direct harm to clients. At least that is how it appears to me.

A major point in Will’s article is that the National Association of Scholars did their research on ten major public universities and found that social work students are encouraged to be as liberal as possible for the most part. Their examples could be extreme cases, but they do make a good argument anyway. I personally believe that to some extent people seeking a degree in social work must have an open mind and a true desire to help everyone, no matter what they may have done, or what walk of life they are from. Some people may call that liberal, but I just call it what I truly believe is right, and it is what I desire to do.

Their examples are not merely extreme cases. In fact, their examples are false. That is, some of their examples just didn’t happen, and are in essence, lies.

I wonder whether a good argument can be based on falsehoods and false propositions. I often engage in mind-experiments to create hypothetical situations, and then suggest that if we faced a situation such as the one I have imagined, we would then need to make certain decisions. In fact, these hypothetical situations may be far from realistic; they aren’t based on actual facts, so the situations I ask people to consider might be unlikely. But at least I make it clear I’m engaging in hypothetical mind-experiments and explain the degree to which my imagined situations are based on my suppositions or knowledge about actual facts. Anyway, my purposes are mainly to get people to think about things and reach their own conclusions. The National Association of Scholars is not merely trying to make people think about social work education: they are actively attacking the Council on Social Work Education and the National Association of Social Workers, and trying to change education policies related to social work.

Being open to all ideas and arguments, and then thinking critically about the ideas and arguments, weighing them, and reaching conclusions based on reason, evidence, values, and so forth is in fact the only “ethical value” of liberal education (take a look at various official defining statements about liberal education made by professional associations of university administrators or faculty, and you’ll confirm this is true). That is, we are supposed to be open-minded, and that “liberal” aspect of education is about being broadly informed and willing to listen to alternative points of view, and isn’t very closely connected to the idea of “liberal” as in liberal political ideologies. Libertarians, for example, are usually good advocates for a liberal education and open-mindedness, but when it comes to economic and social welfare policies, Libertarians are the opposite of the political liberals. I think you’re correct that the National Association of Scholars was conflating the two meanings of liberal. Social work has traditionally been built upon a base of liberal education, and the ideals of liberal education related to open-mindedness and liberty (client autonomy) are certainly enshrined within the spirit and ideology of the social work profession.

However, I do not think it was right that Emily Brooker, a social work major from Missouri State University, was penalized because she objected to advocating for homosexual foster homes and adoption based on her religious beliefs. What happened to accepting everyone, religious affiliations included? Ms. Brooker may very well have no qualms with homosexuality, and be ready and willing to help those who cross her path. This particular subject just happened to be something she was not comfortable advocating for.

I agree with you. But I don't trust the N.A.S. presentation of the facts in this case. I personally would oppose any decision by the social work department or any school of social work to force students to advocate for policies that the students personally oppose. There are so many important issues where social work is speaking out for justice and improved policies, and I reckon it should be easy to find something else a student could advocate for. Acceptance of sexual orientations that differ from the mainstream is an important aspect of social work, but we draw the line at some forms of sexual desire (social workers don’t advocate for laws allowing incest, or sex with minors). If some members of our profession haven’t come as far as the profession as a whole in accepting homosexuality, I see no reason to make that one issue a point of contention and punishing the individual social work student or social worker.

If a student doesn’t want to advocate for same-sex couples being allowed to adopt children, then let the student advocate for better training for foster parents, larger stipends for foster parents, bigger tax breaks for domestic adoptions, or greater generosity for adoptive parents who accept a child with chronic health problems or disabilities into their families. These are other important issues, and if we lose a social worker who could advocate for these worthy causes merely because she or he doesn’t want to advocate for some aspect of gay rights, we’ve wasted an opportunity. At least, that is how I see it. (Incidentally, I personally do advocate for gay rights, and have spoken out in favor of same-sex couples being allowed to adopt children.)

I think it is possible to be a good but imperfect social worker if one is racist, homophobic, sexist, nationalistic, chauvinistic, sexually libertine, or prejudiced against persons with disabilities. These are all faults and weaknesses, but it is possible to do some forms of social work where such weaknesses will not destroy one’s ability to provide excellent services and behave according to the code of ethics.

As a social work student thus far I have been taught that it is necessary to set our own values and beliefs aside in order to fully and effectively help our clients. In Ms. Brooker’s case, advocating for this subject was forced upon her, and in any respect I don’t believe that is how the future social workers of the world should be brought up. No one should be forced to do anything they are not comfortable with. We wouldn’t expect or want our clients to feel as if our beliefs are being forced on them so it is only fair not to force social work’s “liberal” beliefs on those that are not yet ready or willing.

You make a good point about our professional duties to set our personal values aside. Perhaps this means that it would be a useful and appropriate exercise to ask a social work student to do something that went against their personal beliefs.