Alan Dettlaff, PhD
There is a growing divide between reform-oriented and abolitionist approaches in social work, the performative nature of professional organizations, and the personal and professional costs of leading through values rather than strategic neutrality.
In late 2022, Alan Dettlaff, then Dean of the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston, was removed from his position. The circumstances sent ripples through the profession, raising urgent questions about academic freedom, the limits of institutional critique, and what it truly means to lead in a time of upheaval.
In this episode, we speak with Dettlaff to explore the deeper tensions his experience reveals. Drawing on his journey from child welfare investigator to abolitionist scholar, he reflects on how the profession’s stated commitments to racial justice often clash with the realities of institutional power, funding streams and risk aversion. Dettlaff also offers a sobering assessment of what is at stake: nothing less than the future of the profession itself.
For social workers at every level — students, practitioners, faculty and administrators — this episode provides a rare, firsthand look at the power and peril of speaking truth inside systems not built to hear it.
Alan Dettlaff, PhD, is a professor of social work at the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston and co-founder of the upEND Movement, a collaborative effort to abolish the family policing system and build alternatives centered on healing and liberation. He is the author of Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System: The Case for Abolition (Oxford University Press, 2023) and a co-founding editor of Abolitionist Perspectives in Social Work.
Show Notes
Cite this podcast – Sobota, P. (Host). (2026, May 19). Leadership Through Values (No. 348) [Audio podcast episode]. In inSocialWork. University at Buffalo School of Social Work.
