A feature of leftism is that it never rests. Every field of human endeavor must be saturated with “correct thinking,” and dissent must be eradicated.

That’s emphatically true throughout our education system, where numerous formerly useful disciplines have been undermined by zealots who feel the need to turn every student into a true believer. In today’s Martin Center article, I write about one such instance: social work.

The article was inspired by, first, a case at UNC, where a social-work professor was dumped following the school’s paroxysm over the death of George Floyd where the dean called for a redoubling of the already abundant efforts for “social justice.” It was also inspired by an enlightening article by a professor of social work that appeared in the National Association of Scholars’ journal Academic Questions.

The author of that article, Naomi Farber of the University of South Carolina, laments the thorough politicization of the field of social work. It isn’t enough to train well-meaning people to help those who are in need — oh no. Social workers must be imbued with leftist groupthink about the supposed causes of America’s problems: racism, capitalism, etc. She points to statements by schools of social work to the effect that their mission is to advance antiracism and social justice and states that they act “as a noose around the neck of the profession, pulling it farther and farther from the liberal humanism that animated its mission to serve the well-being of people in need.”

Naturally, the accrediting body for social work has been captured by leftist groupthink and demands that social-work programs must be steeped in “progressive” ideology.

Another once-useful field has been ruined.