A Yale psychiatry professor’s case against the institution for dismissing her over a tweet that questioned the mental health of Donald Trump and his fans was dismissed by a court, ending her attempt to get her job back.
Last year, Dr. Bandy Lee complained to Yale, alleging that it was against her free speech rights and professional duties to inform the public about Trump’s “mental illness” and the “shared psychosis” of his fans.
According to the university, which had the right to not rehire Lee, a volunteer lecturer, after losing faith in her expertise as a result of her contentious post, US District Judge Sarah Merriman rejected the lawsuit on Tuesday, agreeing with the institution.
In particular, Lee organised a symposium at Yale in 2017 that led to the release of her book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” and she has been a vociferous opponent of Trump ever since.
In it, Lee made the argument that Trump’s mental state was endangering democracy as well as the mental health of the country.
Additionally, in 2019, she sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee alleging that the former president was exhibiting “signs of delusion” during his first impeachment investigation.
In addition to her tweet on Trump’s fans, Lee also said that Trump’s attorney Alan Dershowitz had “wholly taken on Trump’s illnesses through contagion.”
The American Psychiatric Association’s Goldwater Rule stipulates that it is improper for psychiatrists to remark on a public figure’s mental capacities in an official position unless given permission or after a medical evaluation. The university said she regularly broke this rule.
Lee was instructed by Yale’s department head of psychiatry, Dr. John Krystal, to cease tweeting about Trump’s mental health and that of his entourage and supporters, but she persisted until she was fired.
I want to emphasise that you did not make these statements as a layperson offering a political judgement; rather, you made them explicitly in your professional capacity as a psychiatrist and on the basis of your psychiatric knowledge and judgement, according to Krystal’s letter terminating her employment in 2020.
The committee determined it was fair to take into account how these remarks represented your capacity to instruct trainees for that reason.
A request for comment from DailyMail.com was not immediately answered by Lee or Yale representatives.
Following the professor’s tweet, Dershowitz sent a letter to Yale administration on January 11 demanding that she be reprimanded since the post constituted “a major breach of the ethics of the American Psychiatric Association.”
Dershowitz said in his letter that Lee had “publicly classified [Dershowitz] as psychotic…without ever evaluating or even meeting” him, according to the Yale Daily News.
Lee also asserts in her lawsuit that she did not make a diagnosis of Dershowitz but rather “was rather remarking on a general phenomena of “shared psychosis.”
She was seeking reinstatement and damages for “economic losses” and “emotional suffering,” among other things.
Lee said that while though her position was unpaid and only required a little amount of teaching, the perks, advantages, and visibility it provided were worth “thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars.”
Lee further alleges that in order to accept the position at Yale, her alma institution, she declined a post at Harvard.
She further said that in order to accept the volunteer post at Yale, her alma institution, she had to renounce a position at Harvard University.
In the end, the former Yale professor referred to the Goldwater Rule as a “gag order,” as stated in the court records.
According to Lee’s complaint, the rule violates her professional obligations as a psychiatrist “in light of her belief that Donald Trump posed a dangerous threat to his country and the world.”
Since 2007, Lee has belonged to the American Psychiatric Association.