House Republicans on the Education and Workforce Committee have released an investigative report accusing the American Psychological Association (APA) of allowing antisemitism to fester within its ranks, appeasing anti-Israel activists, and dismissing the concerns of Jewish psychologists.
The report, released on October 29, 2026, by Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI), is the product of an investigation opened in December 2025. In it, the committee alleges that over several years, “radical activist-academics” have co-opted the nation’s leading professional organization for psychologists to promote political ideologies that demonize Israel, minimize Hamas terrorism, and portray Jewish people as “white oppressors.”
In a statement reported by The Hill, APA President Wendi Williams rejected the allegations, saying the association “unequivocally condemns antisemitism in all its forms.”
“Since these concerns were first brought to APA’s attention, APA has taken meaningful steps to ensure that Jewish members, like all members, can participate fully and safely in the organization and the profession,” she said. According to Jewish News Syndicate, Williams and APA CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr. also emailed colleagues stating that the organization has held listening sessions with Jewish psychologists.
During the period examined by the committee, the APA also passed a February 2026 resolution condemning antisemitism, though the House report sharply criticizes that measure as watered down, and published a May–June 2026 special issue of its flagship journal, American Psychologist, dedicated to “Antisemitism and Psychology.”
“For an organization dedicated to understanding human behavior, the APA has done a remarkable job of ignoring prejudice within its own ranks,” Walberg said in a press release accompanying the report. “The APA has a credibility problem, and its leadership has no one to blame but itself.”
The congressional findings arrive about a month after a Department of Education accreditation advisory committee voted 7–4 to recommend a one-year suspension of federal recognition for the APA’s Commission on Accreditation. According to a statement from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the advisory panel cited a failure to address a pervasive culture of antisemitism. Members of the Education Department committee also raised concerns over the APA’s support of “decolonial therapy,” an issue the House report similarly criticizes.
In a published response, the APA said it firmly rejects the recommendation and urged the department to re-recognize its accrediting commission. Aaron Joyce, the executive lead psychologist for the APA Commission on Accreditation, disputed in a statement to Jewish Insider that there is a “pervasive culture of antisemitism,” noting the commission had received only two antisemitism complaints in accredited programs. The Department of Education has not yet issued a final ruling on the recommendation and is expected to decide in the coming months.
Controversies over October 7 and internal communications
A central focus of the House committee’s report is the APA leadership’s internal handling of the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel. According to internal emails obtained by the committee, APA leaders consulted an affiliate group, the American Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African Psychological Association (AMENA-Psy), while drafting their public statement on the attacks. According to a footnote in the report, APA leadership stated it had been assured that AMENA-Psy accepts all Middle Eastern psychologists, including Israeli and Jewish members.
While the committee’s press release states that AMENA-Psy demanded the removal of references to terrorism, the report details that AMENA-Psy leaders advised against the term. The group’s incoming president wrote that “[t]errorist attacks needs to change, there’s a lot of problematic and racist language in this that will upset MENA membership,” while its then-president wrote that “[t]errorism language is very one sided and overused with Arabs.” The APA’s final released statement did not reference terrorism. Days after October 7, AMENA-Psy, which the APA internally referred to as an “antisemitism stakeholder,” released its own statement that the report says described the Hamas attack as a justified “resistance action.”
According to the committee’s report, internal communications also showed APA leaders echoing biased perspectives or dismissing antisemitism-related complaints. Days after October 7, Cynthia de las Fuentes, who would serve as APA president in 2024, internally compared Hamas’ terrorist attack to the death of George Floyd. She wrote that police in the Floyd context were equivalent to “believers of ‘by any means necessary’ in achieving the goals of Zionism, similar to other terrorist groups’ missions,” while stating that “George Floyd is representative of Gazans.”
In another instance detailed by the committee, in response to a June 2025 exchange with a Jewish psychologist who wrote to leadership with grave concern about antisemitism, then-chief diversity officer Maysa Akbar replied internally, “Sigh!” Similarly, the 2021 APA president wrote “sigh………” to Akbar in response to a May 2025 letter about antisemitism from Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY). Furthermore, in spring 2025, after the medical advocacy group Do No Harm criticized antisemitism at the APA, then-senior director of strategic communications and public affairs Kim Mills wrote internally, “I wonder if the Jews who are so angry at us know they are now feeding hatred from this horrible group.”
The report also notes that in 2024, the APA avoided a request to recommend trauma psychologists for a White House screening of Screams Before Silence, a documentary about Hamas’ sexual violence on and after October 7, with one official writing, “I fear providing some names might insert us into the politics of the film and audience.”
The committee also criticized leadership’s praise of Lara Sheehi, former president of the APA’s psychoanalysis division, whose Jewish students at The George Washington University alleged in 2023 that she discriminated against them, and who has publicly claimed that Zionists have “psychosis.” After Sheehi emailed APA leaders praising their October 7 statement and claiming that those who do not recognize Israel’s “all out genocide” are experiencing “internalized racism,” 2023 APA President Thema Bryant praised Sheehi’s “heart, truth, challenge, and compassion.”
The report notes the APA continued facilitating continuing education credits for sessions led or moderated by Sheehi as recently as February 2026. According to the report, the APA has responded to concerns about antisemitism by division leaders by pointing to its bylaws, saying it “does not, and cannot, censure” members or elected or appointed officials for their speech.
Additionally, the report states that APA members turned division listservs into hostile and deeply antizionist forums after October 7, with posts defending the “humanity” of Hamas fighters and arguing Hamas deserved “kudos” for protecting civilians. In June 2026, the APA informed the House committee that it would no longer host division listservs and would instead provide an alternative online space to enhance its ability to monitor and remove content violating its policies.
Clashes over “decolonial psychology” and journal publications
The House report argues that APA leaders inflamed antisemitism by endorsing “decolonial psychology,” which the report characterizes as an academic framework that views Israel as an illegitimate settler-colonial state, justifies violent resistance, views Jews as white oppressors, and pathologizes Zionism as mental illness while demanding activism as part of clinical treatment.
In 2025, American Psychologist published a special issue on decolonial psychology, an initiative championed by Bryant. One article, titled “Supervision as Decolonial Love: Toward a Transformative Training Process for Palestinian Community Health Workers,” referred to “Palestinian freedom fighters,” described Israel as a “settler colonial” state, and claimed “Zionist psychologies” legitimize an Israeli settler-colonial project.
When the journal’s editor-in-chief later wrote to one of the authors, Devin Atallah, asking for references regarding the concept of “Zionist psychologies,” Atallah replied: “I do not have references for you on Zionist psychologies. I am also not in a place right now to be responding to general inquires [sic] – I am at capacity.” Atallah suggested the editor educate himself about antizionism “on your own.”
According to the House report, the decision to publish the “Decolonial Love” article prompted an editor for the journal’s May–June 2026 special issue on antisemitism to resign, stating the piece contained language that was “incendiary, politicized, and lacking the scholarly rigor we set out to uphold,” while alleging the APA was enforcing strict parameters on the antisemitism special issue that it did not apply elsewhere.
The May–June 2026 special issue of American Psychologist on “Antisemitism and Psychology” was subsequently published. As an example of the scholarship included in that edition, one peer-reviewed study examined how political liberals and conservatives evaluate individuals who express prejudice. The study found that while political liberals generally disliked prejudiced speakers more than conservatives did, liberals evaluated speakers expressing antisemitism more positively when those remarks were justified by strong disapproval of Israel or human rights concerns, viewing the speakers as politically closer to themselves and less likely to be broadly bigoted.
Jordan W. Moon of the University of Southampton, the study’s corresponding author, told PsyPost in October that the researchers found similar effects when speakers justified prejudice against Black or Chinese Americans by appealing to human rights abuses by African countries or China, describing the pattern as a general notion that prejudice is more acceptable when expressed by someone in one’s own group rather than something unique to antisemitism.
Internal battles over resolutions and a Jewish association
The House report also details internal disputes over APA resolutions. In February 2026, the APA’s Council of Representatives voted 127–37 to approve a revised Resolution on Antisemitism.
The resolution states that the APA “condemns all antisemitic attitudes and actions,” pledges to take a leadership role in opposing antisemitism, recognizes the Holocaust, and notes that antisemitic violence increased following the October 7 attacks and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza. It states there is broad agreement that it is antisemitic to hold Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s actions, require Jews to publicly condemn Israel, or deny Jews in Israel/Palestine the right to exist and flourish as Jews on the basis of legal equality. It also commits the APA to including information on antisemitism in its diversity training materials.
However, the House committee criticized the measure as a “watered-down” resolution that “greenlights antisemitism,” stating that the Council of Representatives defied both the APA Board of Directors and a “Collaborative of Jewish Psychologists” formed to advise the board by voting on and passing a resolution that the Jewish advisory group never approved.
The report specifically faulted the resolution for citing the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism alongside the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, and for including a freestanding clause on the “weaponization of antisemitism.” That clause states that “the manipulative or bad faith invocation of accusations to silence legitimate criticism, scholarship, or activism” creates “significant adverse consequences” for Jews and non-Jews who oppose Israel’s actions and support Palestinian rights.
Simultaneously, Jewish psychologists within the APA introduced a resolution to recognize a Jewish ethnic psychological association (EPA), on par with existing affiliated EPAs for Arab, Asian American, Native American, Latino, and Black psychologists. According to the House report, APA ethnic minority groups mobilized against the effort.
The report quotes one of the main opponents of the resolution as arguing that “folks who have been conscripted into whiteness and benefitted from white privilege (whether they have collectively agreed or not) are seeking a seat and voice at the table with folks who have historically been marginalized.” Meanwhile, the APA’s Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest (BAPPI) reported feedback from several groups that “many Jewish individuals (the majority of whom are white) do not face the same anti-Blackness, racism, white supremacy, coloniality, systemic or structural oppression as People of Color.”
BAPPI also criticized the resolution for relying on information from the ADL and for citing Sigmund Freud, who escaped Nazi Austria in 1938 and had four sisters murdered in the Holocaust, and Albert Ellis, stating their contributions to psychology “may be influenced by factors such as white/economic/male privilege.”
Additionally, the APA’s Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA) argued that recognizing a Jewish EPA without taking “urgent, unapologetic action on Palestine” and showing “explicit support for AMENA-Psy” would risk “reinforcing inequities and undermining solidarity across marginalized groups.”
Reaction and next steps
The House committee stated in its report that its findings will inform ongoing legislative efforts regarding discrimination by accrediting organizations.
In an October 30 statement responding to the House report, the ADL said the committee’s findings confirmed its “gravest concerns” that antisemitism is embedded in the APA’s ranks and leadership. The ADL also noted that the APA had recently delayed for the second time in 2026 a vote on recognizing the Association of Jewish Psychologists as an EPA.
“An organization devoted to the science of the mind has instead become a case study in how propaganda works, discarding facts in favor of political narratives and deepening the trauma of the Jewish psychologists among its members,” the ADL stated. “When a healing profession treats one group’s pain with such indifference, Jewish patients are right to wonder whether they will be met with compassion or with contempt.”
The ADL called on the APA to publicly condemn antisemitism, strengthen its policies and bias incident reporting mechanisms, launch an independent investigation, require antisemitism training for all leadership and staff, and recognize the Association of Jewish Psychologists as an EPA.