A very important piece of evidence demonstrating how the political significance of the term was ignored was reported in Advance magazine. The political significance of the term was an issue confronting the RA task force responsible for reviewing the motion to remove the requirement. The Advance article reported that the task force was going to reject the motion to remove the requirement because most of its members did not attach political significance to the term. Here is a quote from that article:

          “A major point in [the] decision [by the task group] seemed to lie in the fact that most of the group did not attach political significance to the words ‘social justice,’”(occupational-therapy.advanceweb.com/.../No-Consensus-on-RA-Fate-Social-Justice-Is-Likely-In.aspx).

          The task force wound up rejecting the motion as did the RA. But those who do not attach political significance to the term “social justice” have failed to understand its meaning in the academic literature and in the Code of Ethics. This is because political significance is attached to the term in the following three areas: (1) the academic literature outside the field of occupational therapy, (2) the academic literature inside occupational therapy, and (3) in the Code of Ethics itself. Failing to acknowledge this significance represents an error of the highest order. This is because the term's political significance is in fact the most salient feature about social justice. It is also one of the main features that makes it an ill-suited requirement in a profession’s Code of Ethics when that Code of Ethics is supposed to respect diversity of thought and the inclusion of various perspectives.

          “Political” here is defined as having to do with government policies – that is, how the government conducts itself through its institutions; how it administers it affairs. This meaning of the term “political” comes from the first definitions found in the following 9 dictionaries: The Oxford English Dictionary (online), The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (11th Ed.), The Oxford American Dictionary (3rd Ed.), The American Century Dictionary, The Palgrave MacMillan Dictionary of Political Thought (2007), The Essential American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th Ed.), The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, and the Free Dictionary online.

          The three sections that follow will demonstrate that the proper conclusion from a review of the evidence is that social justice is a term infused with political significance. It is infused with political significance in three important areas: (1) the academic literature outside of occupational therapy, (2) the academic literature inside occupational therapy, and in (3) the Code of Ethics itself.

Point One: Social Justice is a Political Term in the Academic Literature Outside of OT

         To establish that social justice is a political term, we can first look to the Oxford English Dictionary. Part of what makes this dictionary so valuable is that it tells readers what kind of term a word is. The Oxford English Dictionary says that social justice is “chiefly” a political term.

          Second is a definition from Kenneth Minogue, professor emeritus of politics at the London School of Economics, who wrote:

          “Social justice is the belief that it is the duty of the government to redistribute the wealth of a society so that each person enjoys at least the right to a basic minimum and so that, poverty having been abolished, certain equalities prevail” (“Social Justice in Theory and Practice” in Social Justice: From Hume to Walzer, 1998, p. 254).

          Third, we can look to an award-winning book by a philosopher at the University of Illinois, Samuel Fleischacker, which is titled A Short History of Distributive Justice (2005). Just as the AOTA Ethics Commission stated in the Code of Ethics, Fleischacker states that the terms social justice and distributive justice are synonymous (p.1). Furthermore, Fleischacker writes that social justice:

          “calls on the state to guarantee that property is distributed throughout society so that everyone is supplied with a certain level of material means” (p. 4).

          One should note that the term property in the sentence above is a synonym for wealth. One should also note that Fleischacker emphasizes that social justice REQUIRES that it must be the “state, and not merely private individuals or organizations, [that] ought to be guaranteeing the distribution” of material wealth.

          The idea that social justice is not about individual charity, but, rather, about government policies that redistribute wealth are found in a fourth book on subject, Social Welfare and Social Justice (1987) by Beverly and McSweeney. This book (1) denigrates charity on pages 12 and 13 because charity involves inequality, and (2) looks to the government to restructure society: in other words, social justice is NOT about charity, but REQUIRES the government to engage in the distribution of wealth.

          Fifth, we can also look to the most influential book on the subject, John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971). There, Rawls posits an elaborate governmental scheme, including a government branch called the Distributive Branch that redistributes wealth for the sake of making all people more economically equal.

          Sixth is an example from the philosopher Brian Barry, who stated in his book, Why Social Justice Matters (2005) that:

          “it goes without saying that it would be a complete waste of time to talk about the just redistribution of resources unless the redistribution of property by the state was on the agenda” (Barry, p. 22).

           Again, “property” is a synonym for wealth. Barry, who has written extensively on the subject of social justice, says it is a “complete waste of time” to talk about social justice if we are not going to talk about its political nature as expressed through the government’s redistributing wealth.

          All this and more establishes that social justice is a political term in the academic literature outside of occupational therapy.

    Point Two: Social Justice is a Political Term In the Occupational Therapy Literature

          Point Two can be answered by looking at the work of Ann Wilcock and Elizabeth Townsend, two of the foundational scholars in occupational therapy on the topic of social justice. In the 2nd Edition of An Occupational Perspective of Health (2006), Wilcock endorsed the left-wing Green Party because it “holds ecology, social justice, grassroots democracy, and nonviolence as its political values” (p. 231). Thus social justice is a “political value.”  

          In the 1st Ed. of An Occupational Perspective of Health (1998), Wilcock noted that “Political Science” is one of the bases of social justice (p. 230). Wilcock also noted that her notion of social justice includes “political lobbying” (p. 230). She even defined it as promoting “social and economic change to increase individual, community, and political awareness, resources and opportunity for health and well-being” (p. 259). By “economic change,” Wilcock is referring to government policies. Thus, her view of social justice is “political” because it is based on “Political Science,” includes promoting “political awareness,” and its application involves “political lobbying” to change government economic policies.

         Elizabeth Townsend’s view of social justice echoes that of Wilcock. In her 1993 lecture, “Occupational Therapy’s Social Vision,” found in Can J Occup Ther, 1993 Oct; 60(4):174-84, Townsend stated that the “parameters” of social justice “are ethical, political, economic, and legal” (1993, p. 176). It should be noted that three of these terms fit the definition of political: again, the term “economic” refers to government economic policies, and the term “legal” has to do with laws passed by the government to effectuate its policies. And although Townsend states that social justice is a people-centered concept, she makes it clear that such a concept must be “supported by public policies and laws” (1993, p. 176).

         Townsend also states that social justice is about inclusiveness, which “depends on … public policies, economic patterns and laws” (1993, pp. 177-78). All of these fall within the scope of the definition of “political.”

         Townsend further states that social justice is about collaboration, which “needs to be embedded in budget processes, public policies, and laws” (1993, p. 177).

         Townsend also doesn't speak positively of philanthropy because it involves inequality, and she favors what she calls a distributive form of social justice (1993, p. 176). She explained elsewhere that distributive justice “is prominent in laws and policies that address fair distribution of income, pensions, housing, resources such as health care, and social services” (see “Occupational Justice” in book Introduction to Occupation: The Art and Science of Living (2nd Ed) (2010).

          So, social justice, according to the two most prominent scholars in occupational therapy is infused with political significance.

     Point Three: Social Justice is a Political Term in the Code of Ethics 

          One way to get a sense of what social justice means in the Code of Ethics is to look at the book cited in the social justice requirement. That book is Beauchamp & Childress’s Principles of Biomedical Ethics (2009). Here is the sentence in the social justice requirement from the Code of Ethics citing to this book:

          “The principle of social justice refers broadly to the distribution of all rights and responsibilities in society (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009).”

           The sentence refers to “all rights,” which by necessity refers to POLITICAL RIGHTS. And in fact, this sentence mirrors a sentence from page 241 of Beauchamp & Childress, where these authors wrote that distributive justice, which the Code of Ethics stated is synonymous with social justice:

          “refers broadly to the distribution of all rights and responsibilities in society, including civil and political rights” (Beauchamp & Childress, p. 241).

           It is the exact same sentence from the Code of Ethics, except that the last part explicitly referring to “political rights” has been cut out.

           Furthermore, this sentence comes from chapter seven, which focuses on the government policies implicated by various theories of distributive justice. In other words, it deals with social justice as a political term.

           The Code of Ethics also states that social justice is about achieving justice in “every aspect” of society. “Every aspect” by necessity includes those aspects addressed by government policies.

            What easily allows us to determine whether the meaning of social justice in the Code of Ethics is political, however, are the words of Dr. Hemphill, the chair of the Ethics Commission (2011-2013) and one of the authors of the Code of Ethics. According to her, the word “distribution” in the social justice requirement of the Code of Ethics means “that people have a right to needed health care to maintain their normal functioning” (OTConnections forum: “Motion #2-Social Justice,” March 2, 2011 6:32 PM, otconnections.aota.org/.../9397.aspx, accessed May 18, 2012).

          This means that Dr. Hemphill, whether she realizes it or not, is referring to government policies that redistribute wealth for the sake of funding this “right to needed health care.” Only those who do not understand either (1) how terms such as “rights” and “redistribution of wealth” are used or (2) the logical consequences of declaring some good or service to be a "right" would deny this point. (For an explanation of this visit socialjusticesyllabus.org for Chapter 7 of The Practice of Political Filtering in Occupational Therapy (2013) published online.

          Now we return to the motion to remove the social justice requirement from the Code of Ethics, which was written by Kathy Grace, Claudette Reid Stork, and Dr. Rosanne DiZazzo-Miller. They argued that one of the problematic aspects of the social justice requirement was that it was political. If the Advance article is accurate in stating that the majority of the task group assigned to the motion written by Kathy et al. did not attach political significance to the term social justice, then its recommendation to the RA was based on an faulty view of social justice. This is because social justice is a term that is infused with political significance in (1) the academic literature outside of occupational therapy, in (2) the academic literature inside of occupational therapy, and most importantly, in (3) the Code of Ethics itself.

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