As we approach the beginning of the new school year, first-year student orientations take place on college campuses to help students prepare academically, integrate into the institution’s values and traditions, and build community. During orientation for first-year psychology doctoral students at my institution, I was immediately struck by the small number of Black students. Out of 34 first-year students, there appeared to be only one Black student, representing 2 percent of the cohort. The optics to me were quite alarming.
Later, in a conversation with two members of the Black Student Psychological Association, they shared my observation and concerns. By comparison, the 2023 and 2024 cohorts of first-year doctoral students both had five Black students. My larger concern is the impact of having fewer Black students enter the discipline of psychology. While I cannot directly attribute the sudden decrease in the number of Black graduate students to the dismantling of DEI, I strongly believe that the decrease is not a coincidence. As a Black professor who has produced a few Black psychologists in my 27 years in the academy, I’m gravely concerned that in the current anti-DEI climate, the already low numbers of Black psychologists (both practitioners and academics) will decrease even more.
According to the American Psychological Association, Black psychologists represent approximately 5 percent of the U.S. psychologist workforce, falling well below the 13 percent of Black individuals in the United States. It is well-documented that members of underrepresented groups are more likely to conduct clinical practice in underserved areas and/or with minoritized populations. It is also well-documented that members of underrepresented groups are more likely to conduct research with minoritized populations. Fewer Black doctoral students in psychology will undoubtedly lead to fewer Black psychologists working with Black clients and fewer Black psychologists conducting research on the lived experiences of Black people.
When the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) was created 57 years ago, the organization addressed the number of Black students and professionals in psychology and emphasized the importance of training psychologists who want to work with Black populations. The ABPsi produced a document that noted the “extremely limited number of Black psychologists, Black graduate students, and Black students in the undergraduate program.”
The creation of ABPsi was in large part a response to the inadequacies of the American Psychological Association, especially in the area of training sufficient numbers of Black psychologists. ABPsi emphasized that APA needed to recommend that immediate steps be taken to get significant numbers of Black students into graduate and undergraduate programs by any means necessary. However, the APA’s Accreditation Board’s recent decision to suspend diversity standards increases the likelihood that a profession that is already disproportionately White (and female) will become even more disproportionately White.
Many people warned that eliminating race-conscious admissions (i.e., affirmative action) would have a negative impact on creating access and opportunity for Black students. While race-based data on admissions are hard to track, past state bans on race-conscious admissions (e.g., California’s Prop 209) resulted in Black enrollment falling at selective campuses. Similarly, the dismantling of DEI and the failure of APA to offer a public condemnation of the removal of diversity from accreditation standards does not bode well for training sufficient numbers of Black and other minoritized psychologists.
Similar to the backlash against affirmative action, the core of the anti-DEI backlash is rooted in anti-Blackness. A recent series of studies suggests that opposition to DEI is rooted in anti-Black racism rather than concerns about politics or political ideology. There have also been murmurings that APA’s recent history of Black presidents with strong commitments to equity, which led to APA’s apology for racism, has made APA lean too much toward social justice and away from psychology’s traditional scientific focus. Stated another way, there is a fear that psychology has become too diversity-focused.
Given this context, psychology is not immune from the political pressures of the MAGA movement. Indeed, there are likely psychologists who bristle at the notion that there is a need to increase the numbers of Black graduate students in psychology as well as the numbers of Black psychologists. Making psychology White again is the unspoken undercurrent of resistance to diversifying psychology. Much like the eminent psychologists of the 20th century list that drew the ire of Black psychologists and other psychologists of color because it was overwhelmingly White (not even the history-changing contributions of Kenneth and Mamie Clark were deemed significant enough for inclusion), for some there remains a vision of psychology that will always be fundamentally White-centric (whether consciously or unconsciously).
As a Black psychologist, I am sounding the alarms that I hope will catch the attention of psychology departments across the country to not regress on the progress that has been made to diversify our discipline. Psychology cannot be a tool for equity and justice if it does not embrace diversity and inclusive excellence. Let us not make psychology (only) White again.
