Allan Josephson 

Dr. Allan Josephson is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist who served for nearly 15 years as the Chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. During his tenure, Dr. Josephson turned the Division around, doubling its faculty, establishing a national reputation, balancing its budget, and expanding its programs and patient load. In addition, he kept a rigorous clinical schedule, taught at the medical school, authored multiple scholarly publications and earned the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry’s Presidential Achievement Award and the American Psychiatric Association’s Oskar Pfister Award.   

 In 2017 complaints started accumulating about Dr. Josephson’s arguments that, to treat children with gender dysphoria, doctors should try to understand and treat the psychological issues that can cause this confusion before pursuing radical treatments such as surgery and hormones. Following pressure from a few colleagues and activists who opposed this position, Dr. Josephson was demoted from his position as chief and, after several additional months of harassment, was ultimately dismissed from his university post. 

Rather than accepting a settlement offer, Dr Josephson chose to bring legal challenges and, in April 2025 --- nearly 8 years later – decisively won. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit stated that the First Amendment protected Dr. Josephson’s speech, that any reasonable university official “would have understood that he could not lawfully terminate or threaten the economic livelihood of a professor because of his speech,” and that, as a result, the officials who mistreated Dr. Josephson could be held personally accountable.

For his devotion to science-based practices and protecting the health of his patients, the Columbia Academic Freedom Council is honored to present Dr. Allan Josephson with the 2025 Academic Freedom Award.