Senior officials with the American Psychological Association repeatedly dismissed concerns from Jewish psychologists about the organization’s handling of antisemitism-related complaints following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, a new House report found. 

The House Education and Workforce Committee on Thursday released the findings of its investigation into reports of antisemitism and unaddressed discrimination at the APA, which represents more than 170,000 individuals in the psychology field and is responsible for the accreditation of psychology professionals. 

The report states that the probe, which Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) launched last December, “found that over several years, radical activist-academics have successfully co-opted the APA to politicize the association and promote ideology that demonizes Israel, minimizes Hamas terrorism, and portrays Jews as white oppressors.”

“Meanwhile, APA leaders have repeatedly failed to confront antisemitism within their own organization, alienating Jewish members and undermining confidence in an institution entrusted with setting professional standards,” it continues.

The report includes 20 previously undisclosed internal communications from APA leaders, which reveal how the organization’s top brass responded to concerns raised by Jewish members and American lawmakers with sarcasm and disdain, and “internally expressed frustration toward, avoided, or dismissed antisemitism-related inquiries or complaints.”

“[I]n response to a June 2025 exchange with a Jewish psychologist who wrote to APA leaders with grave concern about antisemitism, Akbar internally replied, ‘Sigh!’” the report states, referring to Maysa Akbar, who was APA’s chief diversity officer at the time.

The report features internal communications sent in early 2025 about a letter from Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) about claims of antisemitism at APA, including a message from the group’s 2021 president to Akbar that read: “sigh………” APA’s chief advocacy officer described Torres’ letter as “very thin factually” in another message in the report. 

According to the report, APA refused to stop offering continuing education credits until this February for sessions run by Lara Sheehi, the president of APA’s psychoanalysis division, who was appointed to her role and “praised and defended” by APA leadership despite being “at the center of antisemitism allegations even prior to October 7.”

Shortly after Oct. 7, the organization opted against signing onto the Anti-Defamation League’s Workplace Pledge to Fight Antisemitism after an APA employee requested that the group do so. At the time, according to the report, “APA’s human rights team senior director cautioned internally against doing so because the ADL had criticized Sheehi.”

(Sheehi, who left a teaching position at The George Washington University in 2024 after being accused of antisemitic conduct by some of her students, appeared on a podcast last year to defend the tactics of the man accused of shooting and killing two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington in May.)

Last fall, Kim Mills, who was then the ADA’s senior director of strategic communications and public affairs, revealed in communications that “when the ADL sent a survey to the APA inquiring about antisemitism, the APA declined to respond ‘because it was so biased and clearly aimed at finding fault with [the] APA,’” according to the report.

The report states that Mills responded to criticisms from the medical advocacy group Do No Harm last spring about antisemitism at the APA by writing in an internal message that, “I wonder if the Jews who are so angry at us know they are now feeding hatred from this horrible group.’”

Pointing to those internal communications, the committee alleges in its report, “APA leaders have repeatedly avoided unequivocally condemning the horrors of October 7th and antisemitism.” 

Specifically, the report reveals that the organization allowed a group that does not represent Jewish psychologists to consult APA leaders as an “antisemitism stakeholder” while drafting the organization’s statement on the Oct. 7 attacks, and took their advice to strip language describing Hamas’ actions as “terrorism.” The report alleged that the group, the American Arab, Middle Eastern and North African Psychological Association (AMENA-Psy), “foments antisemitism,” citing their own statement on Oct. 7 describing the attack as justified “resistance action.”

It also points to communications in 2024 from an APA official confirming that the organization “avoided a request to recommend trauma psychologists who could be available during a White House screening of Screams Before Silence, a documentary about the sexual violence committed by Hamas on and after October 7.” 

The APA did not respond to Jewish Insider’s request for comment on the report.

Jewish students and professionals have criticized APA in recent years over what they describe as the organization’s unwillingness to respond to their concerns that antisemitism had become systemic within the organization. 

Last month, a federal advisory board to the Department of Education recommended that the department suspend APA’s accreditation authority due to the organization’s failure to address a “pervasive culture of antisemitism within the programs it accredits.” A final decision on the issue will be made in the coming months by the Department of Education. 

Jewish Insider senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed to this report.