The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has announced that Dr. Allan Josephson, a former University of Louisville professor, won a $1.6 million lawsuit following his dismissal in 2019 for voicing his criticism of transgender treatments for children. Josephson, a psychiatrist, had been serving as the chief of the university’s Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology.
Josephson’s problems reportedly began in 2017 when he engaged in a panel discussion on transgender ideology at The Heritage Foundation. Some staff members at the University of Louisville’s LGBT Center took issue with his views and demanded disciplinary action from his division. His situation worsened when he acted as an expert witness in a lawsuit about the use of opposite-sex bathrooms by gender-confused individuals in a school district. He was demoted and his salary and benefits were slashed before he was ultimately dismissed from the institution.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit allowed Josephson’s case to proceed to trial in September 2024. The ruling declared that public university officials could be personally held liable for censorship or retaliation against professors, as in Josephson’s case.
Josephson celebrated the resolution of the lawsuit, asserting that children deserve better than bodily mutilating procedures that inhibit their chances for fulfilling lives. Travis Barham, ADF senior counsel, echoed this sentiment, adding that public universities have no right to punish professors for having diverse views.
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