Responding to Alt-Right and Oppressive Politics: A Call to Action for Social Work

Abstract

Summary

Since 2025, social work researchers and practitioners have had to respond to rapidly changing policies and practices that directly impact the communities we serve. In this think piece, we identify responses to alt-right politics and shifts in four countries across the Americas to present a call to action.

Findings

As more countries across the Americas are faced with alt-right policies, there is an urgent need for social work to organize, protest, and resist the erosion of human rights.

Applications

Drawing on more radical traditions of social work in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, we present lessons learned and action steps that should be integrated into the discipline as we continue to witness oppressive policies and harm on the individuals, families, groups, and communities we serve. Our discipline has the opportunity to lead the way in resistance, taking a stand against being complicit and perpetuating harm.

Since President Donald J. Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2025, rapid changes have been set into action as flurries of executive orders, lay-offs, and a change-of-guard occurs. As social work researchers, educators, and practitioners, there has been increased tension, as much of the work we do, guided by our code of ethics, is attacked. Anti-Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) measures, attacks on the LGBTQ + community, the complete freeze and rehaul of USAID, and the erosion of checks-and-balances has, in all essence, led to a so-called techligarchy, in which unchecked power has been given to a handful of tech-based billionaires who now have control over many of the social systems and structures we have championed for decades to promote equity. While this may seem unprecedented, what is happening in the United States of America is part of an alt-right movement that we are seeing unfold around the world (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Hungary, etc.). This movement reflect crises intrinsic to unchecked capitalism and represents an imminent threat for democracy, human rights, and social and labor rights.

As the situation continues to evolve and there is relative silence from institutions of higher education as well as from our departments and social work schools, there is a need to collectively organize and resist together with social movements and political organizations. Community and grassroots organizations have a longstanding history of leading protests, resistance, and social movements. As academics and researchers, we can learn and partner to champion human rights, anti-oppressive practices and policies, and resist antifascist agendas.

While the rapid systemic changes and large lack of outrage is disappointing, it is not unprecedented. Indeed, as a profession, we can look at the history of formal social work around the world and identify tension between our supposed commitment to social justice and actual anti-oppressive actions. In Social Work's Histories of Complicity and Resistance, Ioakimidis and Wyllie (2023) rethink social work's legacy and history of both political resistance and complicity with oppressive and punitive practices. This dialectic is part of our reflection here. Each country presents particularly and similarities. But, in this call to action, we defend a perspective that our daily work as social worker (in academia or not) encompasses a political perspective (defined by our Code of Ethics) that requires an integration of the micro, meso, and macro levels.

In the United States, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) is responsible for accrediting and overseeing formal social work at the bachelor's and master's levels. Since the inception of formal schools of social work, the profession has been predominantly white-dominated, often implicitly guided by white saviorism (BlackDeer & Gandarilla Ocampo, 2022). Even before the recent flux of executive orders and attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the discipline was largely silent during the Biden Administration about the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Since 2025, as more of the communities we supposedly advocate for come under attack, many social work academics have simply been told to “pivot their research” and focus on “less controversial” populations for the next four years, essentially keeping our heads down and ignoring the atrocities unfolding around us. A list released on social media identified “buzz words” that have been flagged by the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies to determine whether certain proposals may receive funding; not surprisingly, most of the words that appear are intrinsic to our code of ethics and crucial for documenting and championing human rights and social justice. As these changes continue, we must take a stance and reaffirm our commitment. Now is the chance to truly stand with the communities we advocate for and champion, instead of staying silent and complicit.

As we grapple with these tensions between our code of ethics, our duty as champions of human rights and equity, and unfolding policies and practices around us, it is important to remember that this is, indeed, precedented, and there are lessons we can draw upon and utilize from across the globe. As the United States sees an alt-right push, other countries (and even certain states within the United States) have been working within these constraints or within oligarchies for years. For example, when Pinochet instigated a U.S.-backed coup in Chile in 1973, social workers played a pivotal role in documenting and archiving violations of human rights. These documents became key when Chile returned to democracy in 1990 and were incorporated into the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (Rubilar & Cooke, 2024). The documents have helped sustain the processes for reconciliation and justice in Chile and continue to be referenced in the National Plan of Searching (Plan Nacional de Búsqueda) that was implemented in September 2023 in commemoration of marking 50 years since Chile's coup d’etat and subsequent dictatorship.

In Brazil, we should consider our recent past—with the dictatorship from 1964 to 1984, the impeachment of Dilma Roussef (Work Party) in 2016, and the election of Bolsonaro's government (2019–2022). During Bolsonaro's government, Brazil faced an economic crisis and the changes due to alt-right politics. As these political changes have occurred, social workers have largely opposed any philosophy that suggests solutions must be found through pragmatism, conservatism, or supposed “policy neutrality.” In Brazil, social work is rooted in freedom, in defense on the expansion of democracy and social participation, work and social rights, conceptualizing its role as attacking the retreat from any previous progressive progress, the criminalization of poverty, reductions to hard-won social rights, along with ongoing attacks on social security (Ferguson & Garcia, 2019). As an organizing body for formal social work in Brazil, the Social Work Federal Council in Brazil (CFESS) has advocated for a competent and politically-oriented social work “to combat the inhumanities and unpayable costs of the capitalist exploitation of labour” (CFESS, 2024), rejecting conservative models of social work, and has as its political direction a more just and egalitarian society. This has led to an understanding of the social work profession and knowledge field in Brazil as one guided by a daily resistance in the fight for democratic radicality.

In Argentina, we have navigated processes of legitimization that have influenced not only the discipline itself but also the daily lives of those we work with—rights-bearing individuals who actively make decisions about their own lives (Marro et al., 2021). Historically, we have seen how care was reduced to voluntary, feminized, and moralized actions, framing the guarantee of rights as acts of charity rather than state responsibility. This cultural offensive—rooted in denialism, the rejection of gender perspectives, and the dismantling of public health frameworks—constitutes an attack on science, empirical evidence, and, more specifically, the social sciences and marginalized communities (López & Roncoli, 2024).

Today, much of the Americas faces a new wave of retrenchment marked by: (1) the erosion of scientific rigor in social policies as mechanisms of state intervention; (2) the dismantling of long-established agreements regarding social justice; (3) a systematic attack on diversity in all its forms; (4) the rise of fragmented, algorithm-driven communication that isolates and divides communities; and most critically, and (5) the retreat of the state from its role as a guarantor of rights.

Limitations

This call to social work draws on experiences of social work faculty and researchers from the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, as we have navigated alt-right politics and their impact on the communities we serve. As such, the comparison is largely drawn from our own lived experiences. Future articles could gather empirical data and conduct a more systematic cross-cultural comparison.

Conclusion

While formal social work has navigated the tension between paternalism and radicalism from its inception, there is a strong anti-oppressive tradition found in social work in Latin America that we can draw from. The way forward must be collective: strengthening alliances, fostering resistance, and defending the epistemological foundations upon which hard-won rights rest. We cannot allow fundamental social agreements to be dismantled under the guise of debate. Embracing the radicalism and grassroots efforts that are already on the ground, it is imperative that as social workers:

We connect with grassroots organizations to form collective action, protests, and movements to highlight ways we can use macro social work and community-organization skills to rally and resist.

We identify advocates and organizations on-the-ground who are already doing work and building relationships to support work that has already been done.

We document actions that have infringed upon human rights and continue to strip away justice and equity.

We lean on social workers in states or countries who have been navigating this. In Texas, several academics have had to adapt language, reword certain projects, and identify alternative funding mechanisms to comply with Senate Bill 17, which was passed in 2023 and prohibited the use of state funds for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work.

5. We refuse to engage in anticipatory compliance. As social work academics and researchers, we should use our positions to reclaim labels that have been stigmatized as “buzz words,” continue to do our work, and refuse to “pivot” for the sake of the comfort of those in power.

We do SOMETHING. We each have a role to play in being complacent or speaking out. What that role looks like varies based on each individual's positionality and their own circumstances. That being said, social work as a discipline has an opportunity to embrace its radical, anti-oppressive nature, and pave the road forward to organize, resist.

This requires professional work consistent with the defense of rights, the expansion of democracy, and the anti-fascist struggle. It requires us to act collectively, with other professions, other political organizations, and social movements. In tandem, resistance can also take the form of informal networks and actions, such as intergenerational support and care among women, such as that demonstrated by the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina or the social work collectives in Chile that provided safe spaces, mutual support, and collective processing of the impact of harmful policies that often felt isolating. Together, collectively, we have a duty to promote social justice and advocate for marginalized groups. As new restrictions and attacks emerge each day, we cannot sit idly by and continue to say nothing. Silence is violence, and if we want to truly embody what is written in our code of ethics, we must act now.