Exclusionary Justice: The APA’s Failure to Protect Jewish Psychologists |
In January 2026, the Chief Executive Officer of the American Psychological Association (APA) wrote that leadership means “deciding which battles matter most and committing fully to them, rather than spreading ourselves thin trying to respond to everything at once.” Psychologists were encouraged to use 2026 to “rise to the challenge and show the world the full power of psychology to heal, unite, and lead.” Yet in the months that followed, psychology has increasingly appeared to move in a different direction. Across APA divisions and ethnic minority associations, leadership has engaged in selective outrage and exclusionary approaches to justice, reinforcing rather than addressing anti-Jewish discrimination.
Despite support from a coalition of Jewish American organizations, in February 2026 the APA Council of Representatives voted to defer action on affiliation with the Association of Jewish Psychologists (AJP) as a recognized Ethnic Psychological Association (EPA). While the APA President stated that “the deferral gives council members time for robust discussion and critical deliberation about how best to ensure that all voices are heard and represented,” it remains unclear whose voices are, in fact, being heard and represented. This question is especially pressing given that the APA’s Coalition of National Racial and Ethnic Psychological Associations (CONREPA) had previously opposed recognition of a Jewish ethnic minority association, asserting that the “conflation” of religion, race, and ethnicity “obscures the role of racism, white privilege, and white supremacy in the historical and contemporary oppression of people of color.” CONREPA further argued that Jewish psychologists are “not underrepresented within APA,” that “the majority of Jewish Americans in the United States identify as white,”........