A US goverment investigation into the APA has just been announced. In the following piece, Prof. Jon Mills explains the first stage in this process and sets this momentous action into a wider context – asking what the ramifications will be for the APA. As regular viewers of the CTA website will know, Jon has been a perceptive and committed critic of the political turn in the APA which is the largest and most influential professional body not just in the US but globally.
How Social Justice Ideology Has Damaged the Profession
On December 12, 2025, the Committee on Education and Workforce of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to the President of the American Psychological Association (APA) announcing they are investigating the APA for antisemitism. Based on a complaint letter to the APA filed by Psychologists Against Antisemitism, extensive data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and direct testimony provided to the House Committee, they conclude: “The Committee is gravely concerned about antisemitism at the APA” (p.1). What this means is that they already have ample evidence in this regard, and it is a matter of gathering more documentation from the APA to see how extensive the antisemitism is within its own ranks and organizational structure.
Information that is collected in the investigation will be used to determine whether legislative changes are needed to address antisemitism, discrimination, and harassment among academic associations and professional accreditors.
Vast examples of antisemitic rhetoric and activity are documented in the House Committee’s letter, including how the APA not only supports antisemitism, but even rewards it by sponsoring educational credits to openly flagrant speakers who advocate “violence against Jews and Israelis” (p.2). Of special note is reference to Division 39, Society of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology where the Committee accuses the APA of failing “to take meaningful action against a former APA division president who has made deeply antisemitic statements” (p.2). This is a reference to Lara Sheehi, who has been such a controversial and divisive figure that she has wreaked havoc in two major organizations in American psychoanalysis, Division 39 and the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA). Not only does this statement accuse APA of being complicit in failing to address antisemitism among its leaders and intervene by removing Sheehi from her elected post, this investigation will be further very damaging for the reputation of Division 39 where its board, executive members, and sections have directly or indirectly supported Hamas.
The information the Committee has asked APA to provide is in all likelihood impossible to provide. It is asking for all documents, communications, meeting minutes, notes, emails, text messages, membership listserv discussions, publications, journal articles, and complaints of antisemitism “in the possession of APA leadership officials or APA divisions or associations from October 7, 2023, to present referring or relating to ‘antisemitism,’ ‘Jews,’ ‘Judaism,’ ‘Israel,’ ‘Israeli,’ ‘Palestine,’ or Palestinian’” (p.3) to be turned over to the investigative Committee by January 2, 2026. This would be tantamount to having every trace of communication in all 54 APA Divisions, including any Sections and derivative groups, not to mention the entire APA board, executive, and frontline staff. This would realistically amount to seizing thousands of people’s computers and cell phones because no one is willing to give over their personal data. Might I suggest that the Committee at least examine some of the most egregious antisemitic and hateful comments posted on their membership listservs showing how APA allowed such activity to persist long after complaints were made to their head office.
Although we do not know what will happen based on the investigation, I hope this will lead to a complete overhaul including gutting the bad actors involved and a reorganization of the APA itself. What would be even better is if APA is no longer allowed to regulate the profession of psychology.
APA is the largest accreditor of academic programs, professional training, and continuing education curricula of psychologists in the world. It effects accreditation of education, training, and professional standards in degree granting institutions at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate level. It further produces ethics codes and standards for professional conduct, influences regulatory bodies at the state and provincial levels who endorse, apply, and discipline practitioners based on such standards, and mandates professional psychologists to adopt its code of ethics in treating the public.
Over the past few years the APA has systematically introduced critical social justice ideology into the very fabric of the profession, which is now hurting the public and leading to an increased loss of trust in their attempts to decolonize the profession. We must seriously question how mental health professionals are being trained, how they will interact with the public in need of psychological help devoid of identity politics, and how the image of the profession has been maimed by biased progressive activism that will continue to harm the public if it goes unchecked.
Regardless of the results of the House Committee’s findings, there needs to be public engagement on what best serves individuals within society and what is potentially detrimental to their psychological wellbeing. At the very least, APA policy needs to refrain from entering into partisan politics, decouple from any attempts to promote social justice activism, and return to its egalitarian humanistic commitments to all people it once held.
We do not know how this investigation will impact on the future of the profession or on regulatory requirements if legislative changes are introduced, and how they will impact on public education, free speech, and multiple group identities all vying for recognition; but we do hope it will at least lead to an open and transparent process of examining all the facts.
One thing is certain, however: this investigation will bleed the finances from membership dues, deplete the organization’s reserve funds, and cull public funding that will be required to complete this investigation. APA should have been more thoughtful and strategic in its public pledge to treat all people equally, and that means to refrain from political commitments that favor one group of social collectives over others.
The antisemitism allowed to fester in APA and its 54 Divisions has now reached a tipping-point where ideology meets the practical demands of sound science and its fiduciary duty to help the public. Until DEI, culture wars, and identity politics are effaced from professional accrediting and regulatory bodies, we will continue to suffer from social division, political polarization, and professional embarrassment.
By Jon Mills, a Canadian philosopher, psychoanalyst, and clinical psychologist who has written extensively on the institutional take-over of critical social justice in academe and professional associations. His forthcoming book is titled Woke: A Critique of Social Justice Ideology, which is being published by New English Review Press in March 2026.
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