We previously discussed the case of Dr. Allan Josephson, who was effectively terminated after he criticized transgender ideology and went on to secure an impressive victory for free speech before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.Now, the University of Louisville has agreed to pay almost $1.6 million in damages and attorneys’ fees to settle the six-year-old lawsuit. While the university issued a statement that it has nothing further to say, donors and others should have many questions that need to be answered by a university that spent millions fighting against free speech. In the meantime, the fight for free speech seems to be heating up for another academic at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Starting in Louisville, Josephson was a professor of psychiatry at the medical school and had success at the school after serving as the Division Chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Louisville for nearly 15 years. He has 35 years of experience in the field.
His apparent good standing at the school changed dramatically when he participated in a discussion of the treatment of childhood gender dysphoria at an event in October 2017 sponsored by a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. He expressed his reservations about some treatments, and his public comments were reported back to his colleagues.
Dr. Josephson argued that children are not mature enough to make such major, permanent decisions and that 80-95 percent of children claiming gender dysphoria eventually accept their biological sex over time without such treatment.
Those views are widely shared by others and have been cited as the basis for states adopting bans on conversion treatments for young children.
His commentary triggered a backlash at the school, which led to a decision not to renew his contract. When sued, the school invoked the Eleventh Amendment and claimed qualified immunity. The district court correctly rejected that claim and the Sixth Circuit just affirmed that denial.
Alliance Defending Freedom represented the doctor and secured this major victory.
University spokesman John Karman told Kentucky Today, “As this settlement is related to a personnel matter, the university is not able to provide additional comment.”
I hope that donors and faculty (as well as state legislators) will demand “additional comment.” We have seen colleges and universities burn millions in fighting against free speech or supporting cancel campaigns. One of the most notorious examples was Oberlin in targeting a small family grocery.
These settlements do not include massive legal fees and costs paid by the university to fight these claims. Administrators make these decisions knowing that they are rarely held accountable. They shrug and move on, and the cycle continues.
It appears to be continuing at UCLA this month.
Law Professor Richard Sander is being targeted by law students because he opposes race-based college admissions. In a rally this week, he was denounced as a vehicle of “racist repression,” an absurd claim for a widely respected academic with a long history of public interest work and research.
As a law student, Sander focused on fair housing issues (we both attended the same law school and served on the law review). Sander continued to work with communities to create better housing and served on the election effort and subsequent transition team of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor.However, he objected to what he saw as a dangerous trend in academia in the use of race in admissions. The Supreme Court has declared such criteria as racial discrimination, and Sander recently joined others in alleging the University of California is discriminating against white and Asian American students in its admissions process.
The response was all too familiar. Law students attacked him as a racist for arguing against racial discrimination. Keep in mind that California voters have repeatedly rejected the use of race in admissions, but university administrators have repeatedly found ways to circumvent those referendums.
Sander is part of the group Students Against Racial Discrimination, which filed the lawsuit against the University of California. The lawsuit alleges that the UC system is continuing to allow “applicants with inferior academic credentials to obtain admission at the expense of rejected candidates with better academic credentials.”
Law student Noah Massillon is quoted as saying “What we’re doing is essentially rejecting Richard Sander and his position on campus as well as all that stands behind that – all of the racist repression.”
Various groups are targeting him.
The UCLA Black Law Students Association and other student groups organized the protest.
It takes great courage for faculty like Professor Sander to stand against these academic flash mobs. Most faculty either join the campaigns against these dissenters or remain conspicuously silent as they are pursued. An academic has to be prepared to put at risk everything that brings meaning to an intellectual life from teaching to publication opportunities. They are often targeted, shunned, investigated, and even fired.
However, for those of us who have been teaching for decades, we are seeing the ruination of higher education in a single generation of administrators and faculty. Free speech has been in a free fall on campuses. Conservative, libertarian, and dissenting faculty have been effectively purged from departments. Many of these faculty members are not conservative but simply voicing concerns over falling standards and rising orthodoxy on campuses.
It is particularly sad to see law students encouraging such a campaign against an academic who was willing to put his career and his standing at risk to fight for what he believes is in the best interest of the school. You can disagree with the merits of the lawsuit without labeling Sander and others as racists. Both sides of this debate clearly care about UCLA and its future. It should be possible to have a civil and respectful discussion of these issues.
Sander is offering these students the greatest lesson of his career: that it is sometimes necessary to stand against a mob; to refuse to be intimidated in seeking to do what you believe is right.