CorruptED: SPLC influence in pre-service teacher and continuing education

Investigations


Total number of states: 38 plus District of Columbia

Total number of Colleges of Education in this report: 100

Colleges of Education (COEs) across the country have incorporated the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) resources, lessons, and Social Justice Standards (SJS) into pre-service teacher preparation programs, coursework, departmental frameworks, and educator training initiatives.

Because COEs are the primary institutions responsible for preparing future K-12 classroom teachers, as well as the continuing education of present teachers and administrators, they play a major role in what content, materials, “best practices,” and perspectives shape educators.

Additionally, pre-service and current teachers often rely on curriculum, lessons, and resources promoted by Colleges of Education because these institutions are trusted by K-12 schools and educators.

This report exposes the various ways that Learning for Justice/ Teaching Tolerance content, materials, resources, Social Justice Standards, and ideologies are promoted, utilized, and integrated into Colleges of Education nationwide.

The SPLC’s websites, content, programming, and standards are found in:

  • Course work, classroom activities and assignments
  • Pre-service degree program evaluations and handbooks
  • Foundational department frameworks
  • Various educational resources

Importantly, few COEs outwardly acknowledge their use of SPLC materials; instead, many COEs hide their usage and promotion behind faculty login pages.

This report also examines academic journal articles, doctoral dissertations, and master’s theses to provide additional insight into how SPLC materials and Social Justice Standards are incorporated into Colleges of Education, teacher preparation programs, and K-12 classrooms.

  • A $275,000, grant-funded National Science Foundation Computer Science for All program between Northern Arizona University (AZ) and Flagstaff Unified School District features curriculum that incorporates Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards into lessons.
  • In 2019, the Department of Education granted California’s Claremont Graduate University (GCU) $3.3M to “develop and cultivate educators-in-training for the Claremont Fellows Program.” According to GCU’s grant proposal, the program would “introduce Fellows to the following core social justice teaching ideas and practices” including the “Social Justice Standards from Teaching Tolerance.”
  • Sacramento State University (CA) College of Education requires that pre-service teachers be evaluated on the integration of the Social Justice Standards into their professional practice.
  • The Maryland State Department of Education incorporates the Social Justice Standards into its regulations governing new teacher induction programming run by school districts and “Programs for Professionally Licensed Personnel.”
  • The University of Maryland College of Education’s Master’s in Teacher Leadership: STEM features a “Key Theme” of “Equity, Access, and Anti-bias Education” that foregrounds “anti-bias education and integrate social justice standards and critical practices from the organization, Learning for Justice, into our programs.”
  • According to Brandeis University’s (MA) Teacher Education Program Handbook, it “uses Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards as a guide for our program-wide theme: Teaching for Social Justice.”
  • The University of Michigan’s Marsal Family School of Education’s ASSETS Framework is focused on a “more just and equitable elementary science teaching” that includes developing a “critical consciousness” (i.e. woke) and “draws from or connects to” Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards.
  • As part of the Kutztown University of Pennsylvania’s (PA) Pre-candidacy Field Experiences, students are to complete a “Teaching Tolerance module” to fulfill the “Developing My Understanding of Diversity” requirement.
  • The University of Pittsburgh’s (PA) Falk Laboratory School, a progressive private K-8 school affiliated with the School of Education, incorporates the Social Justice Standards into the middle school Social Justice course curriculum.
  • The University of North Texas’ (TX) summer of 2026 course EDCI 5360: Advances in Teaching features “Required Readings” that include Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards.
  • Linfield University’s (OR) Department of Education states that it “integrates the Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards” into program curriculum. A program course titled EDUC 580: Planning, Implementing & Assessing Instruction for ESOL features a “Key Assessment” worth 20% of the overall course grade that requires students to create a “Social Justice Lesson Plan” that includes the Social Justice Standards.
  • Portland State University’s (OR) Master’s of Elementary Education program incorporates the Social Justice Standards into its professional standards to be addressed by students.
  • The College of William and Mary’s (VA) School of Education integrates the “Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards” into “course readings and assignments, deliberate integration into instructional planning, and the evaluation of professional dispositions for teachers” and requires that preservice teachers “integrate the Social Justice Standards for their selected grade levels across academic courses and in practica and internship instructional planning and instruction.” The teacher education program also states that the Social Justice Standards “reflect the School of Education’s philosophical approach to teaching and learning.”
  • At Western Washington University (WA), student teachers are evaluated on their integration of the Social Justice Standards into planning documents by demonstrating “clear links to identity and diversity anchor standards found in Learning for Justice/ Teaching Tolerance Standards.”

Learning for Justice content and Standards sometimes work their way into courses, pre-service programming, and K-12 classrooms indirectly. For example, a University of Kentucky College of Education professor, who consults for the SPLC, is the “co-creator and co-director of C3 Teachers (c3teachers.org).”

The C3 Teachers website gives the public access to free lesson plans that often feature Learning for Justice/ Teaching Tolerance materials, links, and Social Justice Standards. For Example, a lesson titled “What should we do about hate groups recruiting young people?” integrates the Social Justice Standards and states that “students will plan and carry out collective action against bias and injustice in the world and will evaluate what strategies are most effective.” The lesson includes a video clip as an authoritative source discussing the events surrounding the 2017 Charlottesville (VA) Unite the Right Rally.

The C3 Teachers site and content can be found in university teaching methods courses and even state-level Department of Education websites.

There were cases in which course descriptions, websites, or other documents listed the use of “social justices standards” in that particular course or program (see the example from Johns Hopkins University below), but it was not possible to validate that these were Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards. Therefore, they were left out of this report.

For more in-depth background information on the SPLC’s Learning for Justice/ Teaching Tolerance programming, read our prior report here.


A “Research-Practitioner Partnership (RPP)” between “Northern Arizona University (NAU) and educators from W.F. Killip Elementary School in the Flagstaff Unified School District” includes curriculums that incorporate Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards into the lessons.

The Partnership was intended to “introduce Native American students in elementary school to computer science through an innovative curriculum that integrated culturally-responsive pedagogy and problem-based learning to focus on understanding and measuring the internet.” The program received a $275,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer Science for All grant to facilitate the partnership and creation of “culturally-responsive computer science curriculum.”


California State University Channel Islands’ School of Education incorporates the Social Justice Standards into at least two required courses.


According to Sacramento State University’s College of Education “Multiple Subject Credential Program” handbook, pre-service teachers are to be evaluated on the integration of the Social Justice Standards into their professional practice.

The “Teaching Credential Branch” of the College states that its “Mission” is to prepare “socially just teachers and teacher leaders to be agents of change, committed to equity and inclusion in culturally and linguistically diverse schools and communities.”


Brandeis University’s Teacher Education Program Handbook states that it trains future educators to engage “students in issues of equity and justice.” The Teacher Education Program features a central theme of “Teaching for Social Justice.”

The handbook notes that the Program “uses the Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards as a guide for our program-wide theme: Teaching for Social Justice.”


The College of William & Mary’s School of Education 2025 – 2026 Teacher Education Handbook states that its “teacher education program in Curriculum & Instruction (C&I) is founded upon the department’s Social Justice Framework for Teachers.” The handbook notes that C&I integrates the “Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards” into “course readings and assignments, deliberate integration into instructional planning, and the evaluation of professional dispositions for teachers.”

According to the handbook, “preservice teachers will integrate the Social Justice Standards for their selected grade levels across academic courses and in practica and internship instructional planning and instruction.”

The document also states that the Social Justice Standards “reflect the School of Education’s philosophical approach to teaching and learning” and are meant to “supplement instructional planning and professional dispositions as a guiding framework and resource for teachers.”


According to Western Washington University’s (WA) Woodring College of Education, student teachers are evaluated on their integration of the Social Justice Standards into planning documents which demonstrate “clear links to identity and diversity anchor standards found in Learning for Justice/ Teaching Tolerance Standards.”


As part of the report, education journals and College of Education dissertations and Master’s Theses were utilized as additional sources of how Learning for Justice content and its Social Justice Standards were integrated into university courses, preservice teacher programming, and K-12 classrooms.

For example, a journal article published in 2021 titled “Social Justice Standards in Teacher Education: Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers’ Successes, Struggles, and Futures” highlights the integration of the Social Justice Standards by “five pre-service and in-service teachers” while part of a “rural teacher education program.”

The article notes that one of the participant’s coursework “overwhelmingly centered around collective action for social change” and their “proposed student projects integrating the SJS with Texas curriculum standards for English included ‘writing a letter to a government representative, presenting at a local town hall meeting using argumentative, informative, or persuasive techniques, and writing poetry into action.”

Additionally, an article titled “‘I Used to Think, But Now I Know’: Interrupting Preservice Teachers’ Beliefs about Equity” featured in the Fall 2022 issue of Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal discusses integrating these Learning for Justice materials into a Foundations of Education course for aspiring teachers.

In a journal article titled Learning to Lead Group Discussions: Teacher Education at the Intersection of Content, Pedagogy, and Equity, the authors note how preservice teachers embedded the Social Justice Learning Standards into their fieldwork experiences.

A California State University, Northridge thesis titled “Teaching for Social Justice: A Professional Development Series” explains how they used professional development training sessions for Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) teachers to promote social justice and advance the use of the Social Justice Standards.


Below is a sampling of journals, dissertations, and theses that do one or more of the following:

  • Promote the use and/or integration of Learning for Justice content and standards
  • Recommend the adoption of the Social Justice Standards
  • Notes how professors and preservice teachers embed these materials and standards into the classroom and lessons

This is not a comprehensive list.

Journals

Dissertations

Theses


Below is a list of Colleges of Education by state that feature Learning for Justice/ Teaching Tolerance links, content, resources, or promote the organization’s Social Justice Standards. This is not a comprehensive list and will be updated as new information is identified and vetted.

University of North Alabama

Arizona State University

Northern Arizona University

University of Central Arkansas

California Polytechnic State University

California Polytechnic State University, Humboldt

The California State University System

California State University Channel Islands

California State University, Dominguez Hills

California State University Long Beach

California State University, Northridge

Claremont Graduate University

Sacramento State University (California State University, Sacramento)

San Jose State University

Santa Clara University

Stanford University

University of California Berkeley

University of Colorado Boulder

Quinnipiac University

Western Connecticut State University

Wilmington University

American University

Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

Florida Atlantic University

University of Florida

Kennesaw State University

University of Hawai’i

Eastern Illinois University

Elmhurst University

Northwestern University

Ball State University

Purdue University Fort Wayne

William Penn University

University of Kansas

Western Kentucky University

The University of Maine

Maryland State Department of Education

University of Maryland

Brandeis University

Fitchburg State University

Harvard University

Stonehill College

Michigan State University

Northern Michigan University

University of Michigan

Western Michigan University

Metropolitan State University

Minnesota State University Mankato

St. Olaf College

University of Minnesota

Delta State University

Mississippi Valley State University

University of Nebraska Kearney

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

The College of New Jersey

Rutgers University

William Paterson University

City University of New York

Columbia University Teachers College

State University of New York – Brockport

University at Buffalo

Appalachian State University

North Carolina State University

Western Carolina University

University of North Dakota

Heidelberg University

Kent State University

Mount St. Joseph University

The Ohio State University

Youngstown State University

Central Oregon Community College

Linfield University

Oregon State University

Portland State University

University of Portland

Western Oregon University

Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

University of Pittsburgh

Westminster College

Brown University

The University of Rhode Island

Vanderbilt University

Prairie View A&M University

Stephen F. Austin University

Texas A&M University San Antonio

University of Houston

University of North Texas

University of Texas at Austin

University of the Incarnate Word

Southern Utah University

University of Vermont

College of William & Mary

George Mason University

James Madison University

University of Virginia

Central Washington University

University of Puget Sound

University of Washington

Western Washington University

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

University of Wisconsin Whitewater