COVID-19 and Structural Racial Inequity: Lessons Learned for Social Work Education

This article examines how structural racism amplified the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 for African American, Asian/Asian American, and Latino/a/x and Hispanic social work students during the unplanned transition to synchronous and asynchronous education at three social work programs across the United States, creating additional educational barriers. The aim of the article is threefold. First, centering critical race theory, it discusses the experience of African Americans, Asian/Asian Americans, and Latino/a/x and Hispanic students at three different institutions across the country. Second, it highlights the structural challenges faced by social work students of historically, racially, and ethnically oppressed communities and the lessons learned from the social work programs' pandemic response. Third, social work faculty lessons learned suggest ways to better meet the needs of historically, racially, and ethnically oppressed social work students, and the integration of critical race theory to diminish the effects of structural racism in social work programs' future educational plans in response to COVID-19, or a similar health crisis.