A recent law allows the governor more control over rules in state licensed professions, and Governor Greg Abbott’s office recommended the Texas State Board of Social Work Examiners remove a clause barring social workers from discriminating against clients on the basis of disability, sexual orientation and gender identity. The board unanimously agreed.
Will Francis, executive director of the Texas chapter of the national association of Social Workers calls this horrifying. "For the governor to say I'm aligning this with rules around discrimination is pretty disingenuous, because it's really micro-managing a profession's ability to perform their own regulatory oversight."
He says social workers are in schools, heath care system, child welfare and more, and social workers follow a national code of ethics which has strong language against discrimination.
He fears this will lead to a lot of confusion. "That's on the client and the social worker end. If you have someone with a disability who saw and heard this story that this was now taken out of our code of conduct, are they maybe afraid to get services? Maybe they say I don't know if I can see a social worker anymore. Maybe they can discriminate against me. Maybe you have a social worker who erroneously thinks I can put my own personal beliefs before my professional requirement to see everyone, even if that's not something to do per other laws."
He fears that at a time when they'd like to expand services, this could contract them,
Francis believes this is a political agenda and says "the amount of shock and revulsion and outrage that a governor would tinker with a code of conduct for our profession is overwhelming."