Height’s Legacy Stirs Push for Social Work Act Passage: Among social work professionals and educators, the late Dorothy Height is celebrated for the prestige her record as a civil rights and women’s movement leader brings to the social work profession. Height, who died last week at the age of 98, began her career as a social worker in New York City in the 1930s.In the wake of her passing, leaders of the nation’s leading social work professional and academic associations renewed their commitment to lobby for the passage of the Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act, federal legislation aimed at addressing the workforce challenges confronting the profession.
“I think that it is imperative that the Act pass,” said Dr. Gloria Batiste-Roberts, president of the National Association of Black Social Workers. “It is (Height’s) legacy to the profession. She believed in service to others. She was a giant among us. In the African tradition she was a griot.”
