In October of 2025, I criticized the APA for its gaslighting letter on Palestine, which mischaracterized the genocide against Palestinians as a “war in Gaza.” By erasing the genocide, the APA also erased the mass disablement of Palestinians, the colonization of their land, and the use of patriarchal violence against Palestinian women and gender minorities. 

This type of erasure is characteristic of neoliberalism, a political ideology that systematically subordinates disabled, racialized, and queer subjects while misrepresenting their conditions as fair and equitable. Critical contract theorists like Charles Mills, Carole Pateman, and Stacy Simplican have explained how (neo)liberalism systematically transfers wealth and power from political minorities to economic elites while misrepresenting these relationships as structurally just. This framing makes injustice seem rare, accidental, and natural/apolitical. 

On scrutiny, the APA has a longer history of neoliberal politics. This week, it announced the cancellation of the online conference that the late Helen de Cruz and other accessibility activists worked so hard to establish. The reason given was that “interest and participation” is “significantly lower than for in-person meetings,” and the “process of organizing” the meeting was “more taxing.” In short, virtual conferences are less popular and harder to run. 

The same reasons could be given to justify shuttering philosophy departments altogether. If it’s a popularity contest, why teach philosophy at all? Enrolment in American philosophy departments has been declining for years. Sure, philosophy is important, but if students don’t like it – if they prefer different courses or non-academic pursuits – then why continue to offer it? This is the logic of conservatives who reduce education to a consumer product. 

Philosophy is also hard. Many philosophers would argue that it’s harder to teach philosophy than other subjects because philosophy texts are (often intentionally) dense and abstruse. If organizing a philosophy class is so taxing, then why do it? There are easier courses to teach.

Philosophy is also losing its cachet amongst “posh white boys with trust funds,” which may explain much of its decline. While philosophy enrolment is falling overall, it remains fairly stable in “relatively elite schools” – the bastion of posh white boys. Outside of elite universities, enrolment is declining not only in philosophy but across the Humanities, and while there are many reasons for this, a likely driver is male flight: as higher education becomes more feminine (and disabled), hetero-masculine men opt out. As blogger Celeste Davis observes, in the 1950s, men outnumbered women 2:1 in US colleges; today, the ratio is 4:6. Women make up almost 60% of US college students – an all-time high. Following this broader demographic shift, more women are majoring in philosophy, too. 

The historic trend is that when a professional space becomes predominantly female, men leave. This happened in veterinary school, where almost all students were male in 1969, but male enrolment declined sharply in 2009 after female enrolment reached a tipping point. And when men leave a professional space, social and economic capital soon follow. Just as vet wages dropped after men fled, public funding in higher education is declining. And, because universities are also becoming more queer and disabled, male flight intersects with straight and able-bodied flight: multiple privileged groups are opting out at the same time. 

The lesson is that ingroup bias shapes who chooses to occupy and invest in professional spaces. Part of the rationale – in fact, the main rationale – for organizing virtual conferences was to accommodate disabled philosophers, as well as low-income, unemployed, and international participants. (I myself fit all of those categories, and will not be attending any in-person APA conferences). Not only are in-person conferences inaccessible to many members of these groups, but some of us actively avoid them for political reasons – whether to support inclusive world-building, to protest the Trump administration’s genocidal attack on trans and disabled people, to boycott the US in response to credible threats of invasion, or to avoid the risk of immigration detention in a concentration camp. Perhaps in-person meetings held at expensive American hotels are so popular precisely because they keep out the trouble-makers: the disabled, poor, foreigners, boycotters, and other political agitators. 

How much does it cost to run a virtual conference? APA executives have told me that it’s more expensive than one might think – but surely not as costly as hosting an in-person meeting. To estimate the total cost, we should use the same formula that we apply to healthcare, factoring in not only government and private insurance spending but also “out of pocket” costs. This is how analysts reach the conclusion that American healthcare costs twice as much as Canadian healthcare even though the US government spends less per person. Similarly, when estimating the cost of an APA conference, we should factor in not only administrative expenses but also the “out of pocket” costs borne by participants. Given that APA conferences take place in some of the most expensive cities in the world – New York, Boston, New Orleans – and most international participants face steep exchange rates, the total expense is exorbitant. In contrast, attending a virtual conference is often free.  

In discussing neoliberalism, I could also mention the APA’s exorbitant membership fees, which its own committee members have been protesting behind the scenes for years. (Some committee members want to abolish membership fees altogether and move to a more accessible model of participation). Why does a standard membership cost $63 USD/year for someone making under $30,000 – someone who might be on food stamps and housing vouchers? And why is $30,000 the lowest threshold? (I’m making $0 per year and living on charity – I’m supposed to pay the same rate as someone making tens of thousands per year?) 

Of course, abolishing membership fees is impossible as long as the APA continues to host days-long, in-person conferences in the most expensive cities in the world. But is it worth it? Why not organize smaller, more frequent conferences, tied to local communities, at minimal cost – something other philosophical organizations have managed to do? To invert the classic idiom: if it’s broke, fix it. The APA’s conference model is from a time when philosophy was better-funded and more “exclusive,” accessible only to the “highest orders of society.” In the year 2026, we need to ask ourselves: what model can we imagine for an increasingly feminine, queer, crip, adjunct, international community working on a shoestring budget? 

As part of the neoliberal academy, professional philosophy – especially in the US, the epicenter of global capitalism – is too committed to neoliberal modes of participation, with the gold standard being extravagant parties in expensive hotels in unaffordable cities. Call this the Great Gatsby Model. While the APA apparently can’t afford to host a single virtual conference per year, its board is fine with offloading much of the cost onto individual members, who are supposed to pay hundreds of dollars to attend – a cost treated as an “externality” rather than an operating expense. For those who can’t afford to attend, or refuse to attend a party in a fascist-controlled police state, the message is clear: let them eat cake.