The University of Louisville has agreed to pay almost $1.6 million in damages and attorneys’ fees to settle a lawsuit brought by Dr. Allan Josephson, a psychiatrist the school fired for criticizing gender ideology.
The university hired Josephson to head up its then-struggling Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, which he turned into a program that received national acclaim. Josephson received high praise from both the university and outside psychiatric associations for his work, and his counsel was sought by other academic child and adolescent psychiatry departments.
But when Josephson, during a Heritage Foundation panel discussion, spoke in his personal capacity against subjecting children to cross-gender hormones and mutilating surgery in radical, misguided attempts to treat gender dysphoria, the University of Louisville—responding to demands from taxpayer-funded Marxist activists at the university’s LGBT Center—demoted him to the role of a junior faculty member and stripped him of his teaching duties. University officials then conspired to get him fired, by keeping an “Allan tracking document,” soliciting complaints from alumni who were coached on what to say, and discussing the need to generate “strong documentation” to avoid his reappointment.
In February 2019, the university announced that it would not renew his contract, terminating his employment at the university after nearly 15 years of distinguished service. The Alliance Defending Freedom agreed to take his case.
“After several years, free speech and common sense have scored a major victory on college campuses,” said ADF Senior Counsel Travis Barham, after winning the settlement for Josephson. “As early as 2014, Dr. Josephson saw the truth behind dangerous procedures that activists were pushing on children struggling with their sex. He risked his livelihood and reputation to speak the truth boldly, and the university punished him for expressing his opinion—ultimately by dismissing him. But public universities have no business punishing professors simply because they hold different views. Dr. Josephson’s case illustrates why—because the latest and best science confirms what he stated all along. Hopefully, other public universities will learn from this that if they violate the First Amendment, they can be held accountable, and it can be very expensive.”
“I’m glad to finally receive vindication for voicing what I know is true,” said Josephson. “Children deserve better than life-altering procedures that mutilate their bodies and destroy their ability to lead fulfilling lives. In spite of the circumstances I suffered through with my university, I’m overwhelmed to see that my case helped lead the way for other medical practitioners to see the universal truth that altering biological sex is impossibly dangerous while acceptance of one’s sex leads to flourishing.”
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’,” Mat. 19:4