Joseph Hendrickson / stock.adobe.com
CV NEWS FEED // A federal appeals court recently ruled in favor of a former psychology professor who was fired from the University of Louisville after he argued that doctors should not push medical “treatments” on children struggling with gender dysphoria.
Dr. Allan Josephson, a psychiatrist with more than 35 years of experience, had presented his personal opinions in 2017 during a Heritage Foundation panel discussion on the topic of gender dysphoria.
According to a case summary from Alliance Defending Freedom, the law firm representing Josephson, the psychology expert “expressed his view that medical professionals should seek to understand and treat the psychological issues that often cause this confusion, rather than rushing children into more radical, invasive, and aggressive treatments like puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones.”
Though he led the university’s Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Josephson was then demoted to a junior faculty member and “subjected to a hostile environment and belittling assignments,” ADF reported.
In 2019, the university did not renew his contract. Josephson sued the university for censoring his free speech rights, and a district court ruled in 2023 that a jury should hear his case.
The university appealed the district court’s decision, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling on September 10 “ruling that university officials had to stand trial,” ADF reported in a news release.
“Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Josephson, as we must, Josephson has shown that he engaged in protected speech when he spoke as part of the Heritage Foundation panel,” the appeals court wrote in its opinion, according to ADF. “Defendants should have known that Josephson’s speech was protected and that retaliating against Josephson for his speech would violate his First Amendment rights.”
ADF Senior Counsel Travis Barham, who argued before the court, welcomed the appeals court’s ruling.
“Public universities have no business punishing professors simply because they hold different views than a few colleagues or administrators,” Barham stated in the news release. “The court’s decision affirms that basic truth.”
