By Jessica Russak-Hoffman
A House Committee on Education and the Workforce report on Jew-hatred in the American Psychological Assn. found that anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activists have “successfully co-opted” the association.
The association has about 190,000 members.
The congressional report, which was released as the accreditation advisory committee of the US Education Dept., recommended that the APA’s recognition be suspended for a year, cites internal communications showing that activists influenced the group’s response to Oct. 7 and its handling of complaints from Jewish psychologists.
The report details instances in which APA leaders allegedly minimized Jew-hatred, resisted initiatives to address it and embraced political frameworks that portray Israel as a colonialist state.
“For an organization dedicated to understanding human behavior, the APA has done a remarkable job of ignoring prejudice within its own ranks,” stated Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), chair of the House committee.
“Its leaders have allowed anti-Semitism to fester and radical activists to turn a respected scientific institution into a platform for political agendas, while Jewish psychologists are ignored and ostracized,” Walberg said.
“The APA has a credibility problem, and its leadership has no one to blame but itself.”
According to the report, leaders of the association “caved to pressure to whitewash” the Oct. 7 attacks, “mocked and dismissed Jewish psychologists sounding the alarm on anti-Semitism” and “appeased radical activists who gutted protections against anti-Semitism and accused Jews of having white privilege.”
The then chief diversity officer of the APA “responded internally, ‘Sigh!’” when a “Jewish psychologist raised concerns about anti-Semitism,” the House panel said.
“The APA adopted a watered-down anti-Semitism resolution over the objections of a group of Jewish psychologists advising its board,” the House panel said.
“Meanwhile, opponents of recognizing a Jewish ethnic psychological association argued that Jews benefit from ‘white privilege’ and do not face the same discrimination as other minority groups.”
Days after Oct. 7, association leaders sought input on their public statement from the American Arab, Middle Eastern and North African Psychological Assn., an affiliated group that described the attacks as a “resistance action,” according to the House report.
The group’s incoming president urged the APA to remove the phrase “terrorist attacks” and argued that there was “lots of problematic and racist language” that would upset members in the Middle East and North Africa.
The final statement did not reference terrorism.
The report details exchanges involving Lara Sheehi, a George Washington University psychologist whom Jewish students accused of discrimination.
After Sheehi emailed APA leaders accusing those reluctant to recognize Israel’s “all-out genocide” of “internalized racism,” the association’s then-president Thema Bryant praised her “heart, truth, challenge and compassion.”
In an email cited in the report, Sheehi expressed “grave concern about a Jewish psychologist’s claim that Jews are indigenous to Israel” and told association leaders “that the idea of ‘Jewish folks’ as the ‘real’ indigenous people of Palestine is dangerous, ahistorical propaganda.”
Cynthia de las Fuentes, the association president at the time, thanked Sheehi “for bringing this to our attention.”
The senior director of the association’s human rights team cautioned the association against joining the Anti-Defamation League’s workplace pledge to fight Jew-hatred, because the ADL had criticized Sheehi.
Jewish members who sought to establish their own ethnic psychological association faced objections that Jews benefited from white privilege.
One opponent called the proposal “rooted in its own form of anti-black logics,” the House panel found.
The association’s ethnic minority affairs committee said that recognizing a Jewish ethnic group without “urgent, unapologetic action on Palestine” risked “reinforcing inequities and undermining solidarity across marginalized groups.”
The report describes other instances in which association leaders allegedly sought to balance discussions of Jew-hatred with concerns about Islamophobia or downplayed Jewish members’ complaints.
The House report criticizes the association’s embrace of “decolonial psychology,” which frames Israel as a colonialist state and, according to the report, “links mental wellness with Palestinian ‘liberation’ achieved through resistance and mental illness with Zionism.”
Miri Bar-Halpern, a psychology lecturer at Harvard Medical School testified in September before the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which advises the US Dept. of Education on accreditation.
Bar-Halpern warned that Jewish patients could find themselves working with therapists who regard Zionism as something to be ashamed of and believe that healing requires abandoning Israel and Jewish beliefs.
The report cites the association’s refusal to recommend names of trauma psychologists for a White House screening of “Screams Before Silence,” a documentary about Hamas’ sexual violence on and after Oct. 7.
One official wrote, “I fear providing some names might insert us into the politics of the film and audience.”
The House committee cited messages on an association listserv praising Hamas, a US-designated terror organization since 1997.
One member argued that Hamas was “protecting civilians” and deserved “kudos.”
At an APA 2024 conference of its affiliated Arab, Middle Eastern and North African Assn., a session promised to examine “psychological warfare by Zionist agitators, police and administrators” against anti-Israel campus encampments.
The APA’s 2025 convention featured a discussion contending that “psychological operations tactics” had been used to discredit Palestinians and student activists, according to the House report.
In February, the APA’s Council of Representatives approved, by a 127-37 vote, a revised Jew-hatred resolution containing a clause about the “weaponization of antisemitism.”
The council adopted the resolution over objections from the association’s board and without approval from the Collaborative of Jewish Psychologists, a group formed to advise the board on the measure.
The House panel stated that the report’s findings would inform legislation intended to ensure accrediting organizations uphold “fairness, integrity and equal treatment.”
The association “cannot credibly set standards for the psychology profession” while failing to confront discrimination within its ranks, it said. n
 found that anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activists have “successfully co-opted” the association. The association has about 190,000 members.){kind=link}