This article presents the results of a 2021 survey and interview study of faculty teaching writing-intensive (WI) courses across disciplines at an urban research university. We emphasize the need to understand the complexities of instructors' ideologies about teaching writing and their attitudes about student language prior to engaging faculty development in antiracist writing instruction. Specifically, we demonstrate a "difficult dual mission" in faculty development in teaching writing: writing intensive instructors want to value non-standard forms, but they can't stop valuing the standard forms. We argue that identifying the nuance of this too-familiar argument is the first step in the research and relationship-building required to change university discourse such that the WI classroom supports linguistic diversity. In our summary of surveys and interviews with writing-intensive faculty, we emphasize three major focal points to illustrate the manifestation of this dilemma: instructors' profiles as WI instructors, specifically; their attitudes toward language [generally] in WI courses; and their attitudes toward students' actual language performances in WI courses.