A Letter To President Mark S. Wrighton and The George Washington University Community
We are writing to you as deeply concerned doctoral students and alumni of The George Washington University Professional Psychology Program. We are horrified by the recent harmful attacks on our professor, advisor, supervisor, and mentor, Dr. Lara Sheehi, championed by StandWithUs, an Israeli advocacy group with a documented record of harassing professors (see Jewish Voice for Peace report for their account of how these groups operate). These attacks appear to have originated from a voluntary brown bag organized by Dr. Sheehi as the inaugural event for the department’s new Psychoanalysis in the Arab World Lab. The event featured an Israeli-Palestinian speaker who is a chaired professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Since this event, Dr. Sheehi has been accused by a couple of individuals of being antisemitic, of teaching antisemitic rhetoric within her Diversity curriculum, and her character has come into question. The resulting allegations of her creating a hostile learning environment for Jewish students and of retaliating against them could not be further than the truth. We are concerned that as an Arab woman, she is the only individual whose name was not redacted from the Title VI complaint filed by StandWithUs, underscoring the extent to which both her scholarly focus and her identity are motivators for this attack.
Those of us present for the brown bag and especially those of us who took part in the class documented in the Title VI complaint particularly condemn the blatant misrepresentations of her treatment of our Jewish colleagues. Those of us present in her class in question, those of us who have taken classes with her in the past, and those of us who know her both inside and outside the classroom, can attest to her deep empathy and fierce dedication to addressing all forms of injustice, including antisemitism. It is her dedication and relationships with us across a decade that compels us to address these accusations and offer our support for her during this time.
We believe that any form of harmful rhetoric, including antisemitism, has no place within our learning and clinical environments. Because we take these accusations seriously, we want to attest that in our experiences in her courses and in our professional interactions with her, Dr. Sheehi has approached issues of antisemitism with careful attendance to nuance and with respect for their current and historic complexities. The collapse of her scholarship on Palestine as being inherently reflective of antisemitic beliefs is reductionist and works to silence dissenting Jewish voices by presenting a monolithic Jewish voice as dominant. One of the most crucial skills that Dr. Sheehi and our program have worked to hone in our clinical thinking and practice, is the ability to reject dichotomy and rigidity; rather than splitting when we encounter information that may feel contradictory, we work to integrate different perspectives and attend to the way that multiple truths can be valid simultaneously. Dr. Sheehi, like many others, can support the self-determination of Palestinians while also fighting antisemitism. To believe that it is impossible for someone to attend to both issues runs counter to everything that psychology, and especially psychoanalysis, has taught and trained us to do.
Dr. Sheehi’s dedication to holding this precise complexity is central to her body of work and is well-documented in her teaching, professional presentations, and myriad publications, including her recent award-winning book. It is due to her presence on the Profession Psychology Program faculty and the opportunity to learn from her that many of the undersigned students and alumni chose to study at The George Washington University. She has similarly helped many of us go on to highly regarded internships, postdocs and career positions after graduation. Dr. Sheehi is an invaluable asset to the Professional Psychology Program, and we are concerned that this mischaracterization of her character, her teaching, and her beliefs is intended to, and will, cause her irreparable harm.
We feel these accusations are deeply harmful precisely because of what Dr. Sheehi has modeled for us. She has consistently demonstrated her commitment to taking up social justice issues, in line with the high ethical standards of our field. Her Diversity syllabus, especially, is one of the few in our entire course load that prioritizes literature from scholars and clinicians of color and other minority identities. Her careful selection of articles provides an invaluable opportunity for students to hear voices otherwise rarely given a platform in academic settings, especially in psychoanalysis and clinical psychology. Those of us who have taken her classes, including last semester, have witnessed how she provides a fair, safe, and containing environment in which students can discuss complex and difficult issues. Importantly, she models how one sensitively and thoughtfully “calls in” students without shaming them, especially when biases and inadvertent prejudices may be expressed. As current and past students and alumni, we have also witnessed Dr. Sheehi’s sensitivity and attention to matters of implicit and explicit antisemitism as a part of her commitment to locating ourselves as clinicians within all structures of oppression. Our direct experience of her runs exactly counter to the deeply troubling accusations that are being disseminated about her.
The enriching environment that Dr. Sheehi fosters in her Diversity course and her dedication to students’ sense of support within the Professional Psychology Program extends into the other courses she teaches throughout the year and to her outreach to students during times of socio-political unrest and violence. In light of the current allegations, it is particularly important to note that Dr. Sheehi was among the first to call students’ attention to antisemitic violence, such as the 2019 Poway Synagogue shooting. With this in mind, the current smear campaign against her by right-wing activist groups appears to be among the many targeted campaigns against academics who support Palestine, trans rights, reproductive rights, and racial and economic justice.
Our intention in this letter is both to attest as witnesses to her character and professionalism, and also to protest and expose the fabrications and misrepresentation that have brought harm, not only directly to Dr. Sheehi, her family, and colleagues, but also to her students, our Program, and the patients we serve at the GW Center Clinic and elsewhere. We hope that The George Washington University will offer the full weight of its resources and support to Dr. Sheehi at this time, ensure her safety, and refute the allegations against her so that she can continue her own work of teaching and supporting the students and graduates of the Professional Psychology Program and fighting oppression in all of its forms.
Sincerely,
Class of 2026
Alexis Morgan
Elizabeth Watts
Emma Mugford
Geoffrey Hervey
Manon Pesme
Moataz Salim
Rachel Contri
Serene Kaggal
Youyang Wang
Zahraa Akhwand
Cara Judkins
Talya Beford
Ellette Mendelowitz
Class of 2025
Anthony Marino
Ariel Beckerman
Carmella Asparrin
Han Yu
Hannah Goldstein
Harsh Taneja
Jenee Edgerton
John Stitt
Jung In Park
Katie Lukas
Magnus Dalier
Nahima Vargas
Nguyen Mai Phuong Bach
Tracy Zimmerman
Class of 2024
Alexandra Robelo
Alicia Solorio
Armahn Rassuli
Bryan Becerra
Claudia Downey
Emily Stephen
Feng Xing
Hannah Young
Jayoti Soor
Kara Adams
Lauren Horton
Matilda Bintu Zana Koroma
Michelle Morel
Miral Malik
Razzan Quran
Rohma Hassan
Wafae Driwech
Xinwei Dong
Yewon Kim
Class of 2023
Adriana Abadi
Aida Gruden
Alya Gaspard
Andolyn Medina
Divya Babbar
Ehsan Falasiri
Gabriella Iskin
Guinnevere Parise
Jane Howitt
Julianna Dubendorff
Kristen Joseph
Lingyue Lu
Maleeha Naqvi
Maryam Saleem
Megan Graves
Mengpin Zhang
Muska Anwar
Pavani Khera
Reston N. Bell
Alumni
Aditi Joshi, PsyD
Pamela Blackwell, PsyD, MSW
Amy Sproul, PsyD
Serena Anand, PsyD
Shereen Ayoubi, PsyD
Victoria Todd, PsyD
Joanna Diab, PsyD
Aiyanna Archer, PsyD
Aislinn Moss, PsyD
Kelly Banks, PsyD
Sanjana Kumar, PsyD
Cristel Bel, PsyD
Roshan Javadian, PsyD
Jesse Walker, PsyD
Camille Hawkins, PsyD
Chiara Abbatelli, PsyD
Xi Bi, PsyD
Jordan Watson Galligan, PsyD
Rupa Kaahasthi, MA, PsyD
Marlene Villegas, PsyD
William Max Hurley-Welljams-Dorof, PsyD
Kevin Isserman, PsyD
Olivia Kleinman Dockser, PsyD
Natalia Báez-Powell, PsyD
Nicole Moore, PsyD
Shelley Marfori, PsyD
Celeste Kelly, PsyD
Leisa Small, PsyD
Erik Santacruz, PsyD
Laura Bowles, PsyD
Marianna Leavy-Sperounis, PsyD
Brooke Stroud, PsyD
Hanna Berleth, PsyD
Gergely Foldesi, PsyD
Kasia Garland, PsyD
Claudia Amendola, PsyD
Noura Khayat, PsyD
Christina Ortega, PsyD
Kathleen Saul, PsyD
Nina Hamas, PsyD
Juhayna Ajami, PsyD
Anne Su, PsyD
Kiera Boyle-Toledo, PsyD
Zeyad Layous, PsyD
Jane E. Keat, DPhil, PsyD
Sangeeta Prasad, PsyD
Rukhsana Chaudhry, PsyD
Max Nwigwe, PsyD
Sania Khan, PsyD
Julie Bindeman, PsyD
Mona Abuhamda, PsyD
Timothy Ellsworth, PsyD
Alison McGrath Howard, PsyD
Jordan Ohannasian, PsyD
Jasmine Kaleka, PsyD