An extensive body of research focuses on early-career and pre-service teacher identities, with the underlying assumption that veteran teachers are entrenched in particular mindsets and thus, less likely to explore or learn from social justice pedagogies. Guided by Crenshaw's concept of a "single-axis framework," the authors argue in this paper that the experiences of Jacob, a 30-year veteran educator, disrupts the assumptions that social justice research is limited to neophyte teachers and demonstrates the degrees to which even highly skilled and experienced teachers might interrogate their practices to better advance social justice education that centers students' identities as imperative driving forces in pursuing and achieving social justice. To grasp the significance of centering students' identities as driving forces in pursuing and achieving social justice, we draw on and synthesize multiple threads of literature, and then present and analyze a descriptive case study through ethnographic fieldnotes, a focus group interview, and conversational interviews, in an effort to bridge the divides between pedagogy and practice.