We, the undersigned members of the American Occupational Therapy Association or hereby declare our vigorous, reasoned opposition to the AOTA organizational position that proposes requiring mandatory doctorates for entry-level practice by 2025.

We declare that the decision to impose mandatory, doctoral-level entry into the profession of occupational therapy will greatly increase financial costs to educational institutions for program development, will greatly increase the financial burden on students, and will delay entry into professional practice, thereby exacerbating the dire shortage of therapy professionals that currently exists.

We declare that the decision to impose mandatory, doctoral-level into the profession of occupational therapy is a misguided attempt to increase parity with physical therapists and other professionals, and openly pursues a trend which has proven detrimental to other professions and the patients they serve. It will be detrimental to our own patients, leading to decreasing access to healthcare for our most marginalized client populations. As such, this decision is in direct violation of the AOTA Code of Ethics. Principle 4 of the Code of Ethics, Social Justice states that, “occupational therapy personnel shall provide services in a fair and equitable manner.”

We declare that the position of AOTA regarding this matter represents a failure of leadership, and a gross violation of the mission, values, and ethics of American occupational therapy.

Therefore, we demand that the leadership of AOTA immediately and unequivocally rescind the April 30, 2014 position paper and all of its tenets that propose requiring a doctorate for entry into the profession. Failure to meet this demand will result in the undersigned renouncing our membership in AOTA and overseeing the construction of a new, national occupational therapy association that will hear the voice of its constituents, and hew to the humanitarian values that sets occupational therapy apart from all other professions.

Respectfully,

The undersigned.