The Social Work and Hospice Care Network (SWHPN) is compelled to issue this statement in response to the demographic data released by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) on the racial composition of social workers passing the licensure exams.
SWHPN applauds the dissemination of this important data, and we are deeply troubled by it. We, like many social work organizations during the past few years, have proclaimed our outrage at the structures of white privilege and our commitment to racial justice in our profession and the larger society. It is in this context that we express profound alarm and dismay at learning of the low pass rates of our Black colleagues on the licensure exams. We believe that this data is the product of the implicit racial bias embedded in the ASWB exam -- a bias that is pernicious and pervasive throughout the education and practice institutions of the United States. Immeasurable injury is exacted to our profession when the ASWB exams prescribe ideas of a "knowledge" that is steeped in dominant white cultural values and ways of knowing. There are no tools of racism and colonialism more powerful than pedagogy and epistemology. SWHPN refuses to remain complicit in perpetuating such systems of racism. To that end, we commit ourselves to the following actions: