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Introduction
I write this open letter as a concerned member and advocate for the music therapy profession. I remain deeply committed to AMTA’s stated mission of advancing ethical practice, promoting access to quality services, and supporting the professional development of music therapists. I also share the grief and concern over the tragic loss of life in Minnesota and the broader psychological harm that violence, fear, and instability cause to individuals, families, and communities.
At the same time, I feel a professional obligation to raise serious concerns about AMTA’s recent public endorsement of the Stand With Minnesota platform. While I understand the humanitarian intent behind this response, the form, framing, and language of this endorsement risk undermining the association’s ethical neutrality, professional credibility, and commitment to impartial, trauma-informed care.
Professional organizations must not only express compassion. They must model intellectual rigor, ethical consistency, and cognitive responsibility. When public advocacy becomes emotionally driven rather than ethically grounded, it risks transforming a professional body into a political actor rather than a stabilizing institution of care.
On Language, Framing, and De-Escalation
One of the most concerning aspects of the endorsement is its alignment with highly charged language and framing. Platforms that describe federal enforcement as an “occupation” adopt rhetoric that escalates fear and polarization rather than promoting de-escalation, psychological safety, and social stability.
A profession grounded in trauma-informed practice should be particularly cautious about endorsing language that intensifies emotional arousal, identity polarization, and moral absolutism. Healing work depends on reducing threat perception, not amplifying it. Ethical care requires careful attention to how narratives shape fear, cognition, and behavioral responses in vulnerable communities.
AMTA’s public voice carries moral authority. When that voice aligns with emotionally charged advocacy frameworks, it risks eroding trust among members and clients who rely on the profession to remain neutral, stabilizing, and non-partisan.
“Healing professions should reduce polarization, not amplify it.”
The Role of Public Leadership in Shaping Narrative and Tension
Context matters. Public leadership matters. Narrative framing matters.
Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have publicly criticized federal enforcement actions and called for reductions in federal presence, framing the situation as a crisis of public safety and transparency. These statements have shaped national media narratives and public perception, contributing to heightened polarization and community tension during an already volatile period.
This is not a judgment of motives. It is an observation of impact. Public rhetoric from political leaders directly influences social climate, protest behavior, and public response patterns. When professional organizations align themselves with advocacy platforms embedded in this charged discourse, they risk being perceived as adopting not only humanitarian concerns, but political narratives.
For an organization committed to impartial care, de-escalation, and ethical neutrality, this association carries real reputational and professional risk.
Responsibility, Cognition, and Narrative Integrity
I am further concerned by the way these deaths are being publicly framed through selective identity narratives that emphasize personal roles such as “mother” or “ICU nurse” while omitting the behaviors and actions that immediately preceded the fatal encounters. While these identities are humanly meaningful, they are not causally explanatory.
Public discourse that abstracts individuals from their actions and removes behavioral context creates emotionally charged narratives that discourage cognitive engagement and personal responsibility. In both cases, the individuals were not uninvolved bystanders, but active participants in protest or confrontation dynamics that escalated into lethal outcomes. Acknowledging this context does not diminish the tragedy of their deaths, but it does preserve factual integrity and moral seriousness.
A professional organization grounded in trauma-informed practice and ethical reasoning should resist emotionally reductive framing that substitutes identity symbolism for behavioral context. Compassion and accountability are not opposites. Human dignity and personal agency are not mutually exclusive. Ethical discourse requires the capacity to hold grief and responsibility in the same frame.
When professional institutions adopt emotionally simplified narratives that mirror activist messaging strategies, they risk abandoning the cognitive standards that distinguish ethical care from ideological reaction. This undermines trust, weakens institutional credibility, and compromises the profession’s role as a stabilizing force in moments of social crisis.
“Ethical discourse requires the capacity to hold grief and responsibility in the same frame.”
Consistency, Credibility, and Institutional Integrity
I am also concerned about the appearance of selective moral positioning in AMTA’s public advocacy. While the association has issued a strong statement in response to the Minnesota deaths, there has been no comparable public response to other high-profile acts of violence and trauma that have deeply affected communities and vulnerable populations, including cases such as the murder of Laken Riley in 2024 or the killing of Iryna Zarutska in 2025.
These examples are not cited to diminish the tragedies in Minnesota, but to illustrate a pattern of selective engagement that risks transforming a humanitarian professional organization into a perceived political actor. When public statements appear to emerge in response to specific ideological narratives rather than consistent ethical criteria, the association’s moral authority and credibility as a non-partisan, client-centered body are weakened.
For a profession grounded in impartial care, dignity, and trauma-informed practice, consistency matters. Addressing violence and trauma selectively rather than comprehensively risks alienating members, fragmenting trust, and undermining AMTA’s role as a unifying professional institution.
“Consistency is not politics. It is integrity.”
A Professional Path Forward
I respectfully urge AMTA leadership to consider a more ethically coherent and professionally stabilizing approach:
Promote lawful, peaceful civic engagement
Encourage advocacy through democratic and lawful processes rather than emotionally escalatory rhetoric that risks social destabilization.
Maintain neutral, de-escalatory language
Avoid endorsing platforms that employ polarizing or inflammatory terminology that intensifies fear and division.
Model cognitive responsibility
Uphold standards of reasoning that preserve behavioral context, personal agency, and ethical complexity rather than simplified emotional narratives.
Commit to consistent humanitarian ethics
Apply ethical concern across contexts of violence and trauma without selective engagement based on ideological alignment.
Preserve institutional neutrality
Protect AMTA’s role as a professional body focused on care, healing, and stability rather than political signaling.
Closing
AMTA has an important role to play in supporting communities affected by trauma, fear, and violence. That role is strongest when grounded in ethical consistency, cognitive integrity, and professional neutrality.
A healing profession should be a stabilizing force in moments of crisis. It should not become an amplifier of emotionally charged narratives or ideological frames. It should model how to hold compassion, responsibility, dignity, and truth together.
I offer this letter in that spirit.
Respectfully,
Daniel Tague
Sources:
American Music Therapy Association public announcement on Stand With Minnesota
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