Psychologist Derald Wing Sue’s racialist ideas have deeply influenced the helping professions.
National Nurses United has a message for the White House: “ICE messed with the wrong profession.” After intensive-care nurse Alex Pretti was killed in Minneapolis last month, the union’s members called U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement a “fascist, terrorizing, and lawless paramilitary force violently enforcing a white supremacist agenda.” In another statement, the union called federal immigration enforcement agencies one of America’s “top public health threats,” adding to a string of similar declarations it made about racism, climate change, and Israeli “apartheid.”
The helping professions—occupations like therapy, social work, and nursing—have increasingly drifted from their traditional roles as carers and embraced social-justice advocacy. These fields have long leaned left and female, but the skew has recently intensified, following broader trends in academia. Progressives now vastly outnumber conservatives, creating an echo chamber that has radicalized a segment of the workforce.
