Social justice is a concept that means equality and fairness. In education, this means equal access and opportunity for all students to maximize their fullest potential to become productive and contributive members of society. Within the last decade, the notion of teaching for social justice has become popularized in teacher education. Most teacher education programs' conceptual frameworks espouse a social justice goal--to prepare teachers who have the intellectual capabilities to analyze the nature of injustice in society, advocate, work for social equality, and change agency. The author's goal in this article is to respond to the question: what are the imperatives for social justice in teacher education, and to what extent are they realized, whether in theory or practice? The imperatives for social justice in teacher education include the urgency to (1) foster the human and civil rights of disenfranchised students from diverse racial, gender, social, language, and sexual orientation backgrounds; (2) correct the disconnect between the demographic reality of the teaching force and the changing student population; (3) address the achievement dilemma and gap; (4) examine the existing assimilationist teacher education paradigm; (5) raise and heighten teachers' critical consciousness of the systemic inequities that adversely affect diverse students' learning and achievement; and (6) enhance teachers' abilities for change agency.