About

The conference challenges social workers to engage in racial and social justice action. The goals are to:

Explore the impact of social policies and social services on racial inequities, including the unintended consequences of these policies and services.

Support social workers working toward an increasingly equitable and racially just society.

Celebrate the profound social justice actions of our social work community.

For questions, please email: confrontinginjustice@socwork.wisc.edu.

Land Acknowledgement

On behalf of the planning committee for the Social Workers Confronting Racial Injustice Conference, we ask that you join us in acknowledging that our University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, here on the shores of Waaksikhomik, or Lake Mendota, resides within the sacred homeland of the Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk) people, a place they call Teejop (or Four Lakes). As the reach of the university extends to the far corners of our state, we also respectfully recognize the inherent sovereignty of the 12 First Nations of Wisconsin. Whether you are watching this from the land of these 12 First Nations, or you are more distant, we encourage you to learn about the history of the land you are on. 

Our land grant university could not have been established or sustained were it not for state and federally sponsored settler colonialism that dispossessed and displaced American Indian nations and communities across our state. We must now confront the outcomes of unjust land treaties and the harm caused by our university’s past complicity with policies of cultural and physical genocide as we seek reconciliation with Indigenous nations and communities of Wisconsin.

As social workers, we have a duty to look critically at the role our profession has played in the attempted cultural genocide and destruction of indigenous families, such as was the aim of boarding schools in this state and across this continent. This conference is rooted in critical reflection on our work as social workers. Our goal is to bring clarity about the past, but also to challenge and inspire us all to move into action in our work in communities once the conference is over. We hope this conference provides space for critical reflection, humility and openness which will allow us all to reflect, to hear and tell truths, and move toward action and transformation to support Indigenous rights, cultural equity, and racial equity.

With acknowledgment and gratitude, we move forward in our journey. The fact that we are on Ho-Chunk land, in the way that we are on it, is not separate from what we are gathered here to do.