George Leef’s latest Martin Center column highlights disturbing developments in an area of academia that had been considered insulated from left-wing kookiness.
How far has the United States gone down the road of punishing people for uttering politically incorrect thoughts? Very far indeed, as an incident at the University of Louisville shows. Yes, we know that faculty in the “soft” fields of the social sciences endanger their careers if they happen to say something that upsets someone of “progressive” sensibilities, but the Louisville case involves a (formerly) esteemed medical school professor.
Evidently, no one is safe from the PC enforcers.
Dr. Allan Josephson has been in medical practice since 1976, specializing in childhood psychology. In 2003, has was chosen to be the chief of the University of Louisville Medical School’s Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology. Over the years, he greatly improved the reputation of the Division, enlarging its faculty, securing grants, expanding programs, and serving more patients. He published extensively and his annual reviews were flawless.
But in the autumn of 2017, the university’s previously cordial relationship with Josephson took a U-turn when medical school officials learned that he had spoken about gender dysphoria in youth at an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation. …
… In sum, Josephson, along with the other two panelists, dissented from the idea that children expressing gender dysphoria should be accommodated (such as being allowed to use locker rooms of their preferred rather than their biological sex) and treated with puberty-blocking drugs.
Subsequently, Heritage published a record of the event and it came to the attention of two officials at Louisville’s LGBT Center. While not medical doctors, those individuals strenuously objected to Josephson’s remarks and contacted Christine Brady, an assistant professor in the Division. The two LGBT officials demanded to know what punitive action the Division would take against Josephson.
Now that he was the focus of attention, Josephson’s opponents dug and found that his “offenses” weren’t limited to his remarks at the Heritage event, but that he had also served as an expert witness in some legal cases, arguing against the prevailing ideology about gender dysphoria.