World-renowned academic Frances Fox Piven targeted in American political attacks

It’s not often that social work features in the well-known American political blog the Huffington Post. But this week it covers threats against the world-renowned sociologist Frances Fox Piven, apparently stimulated by vituperative attacks on her by one of the ‘shock-jocks’. Piven is a professor at Columbia University School of Social Work, and many social workers across the world will have been brought up on her social policy books.

We heard so much about right-wing abuse in the US in the recent spate of concern when Congresswoman Giffords was shot in Tucson, but it’s a shock to most of us outside the US who regard Piven as an academic of impeccable standing. But the report quotes just awful material which is claimed to have resulted from media attacks on Piven. And a more extensive and, it seems, unfair campaign against her.

We should all offer her our support and note that supporting social change is sometimes not an easy thing. Many social workers across the world also experience hostility and abuse for what they do.

You can read Peter Deier’s account of it all here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/glenn-becks-attacks-on-fr_b_812690.html