Disproportionate access to literacy skills keeps many students from achieving leadership roles. Using an autoethnographic narrative as evidence, we call for an anti-racist pedagogy in accordance with the social work code of ethics – one that changes how we understand literacy in graduate programmes. We suggest that the implementation of Writing Across the Curriculum via enhanced teacher training in grammar is a necessary outcome of cultural humility at the institutional level. We find that literacy is a social justice issue within our profession and educational context. We hope to inspire more research on how standards and educational policies could meet our proposed goals for educational equality.