‘The Inconvenience of Truth’ — Dr. Bandy Lee Loses Case Against Yale
Why we all must be allies — injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere
‘Gradually, then suddenly.’
I am haunted by Hemingway’s words from ‘The Sun Also Rises’ — a book I banned myself from reading at 15 — having read it a dozen times — from the lingering despair it caused my soul. It is a beautifully written book about broken people, and I hadn’t thought about it in years until that phrase resurfaced during the first J6 Committee Hearing — when Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Virginia) noted how things happen: “Gradually, then suddenly.” She said she doesn’t want to look back in 20 years with the regret of inaction.
The Bette Dangerous community is all about action, and celebrating and documenting the wins when they occur. But we also face reality head on, and today’s news that Dr. Bandy Lee lost her case against Yale on a technicality is a dark day and said day for free speech.
Many of us were able to hear from her firsthand when Ruth Ben-Ghiat invited her to speak on Lucid. We donated to Lee’s fight for press freedom — instigated by disgraced Trump sycophant Alan Dershowitz.
Lee is a medical doctor, forensic psychiatrist, and a global expert on violence who taught at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School for 17 years until she was fired over a Tweet about Trump and Alan Dershowitz, after Dershowitz complained in a letter to Yale administrators.
As Lee wrote today, she launched the lawsuit so that her “beloved alma mater would not lose its way.”
There should be no mistake: my termination from Yale is all about the inconvenience of truth. Academics and reporters are the first to be targeted in times of authoritarianism, because they bring light to truth. Truth tellers are removed, even if one has to employ extraordinary deviations from procedure, as has happened in my case: the replacement of a judge who was ruling in my favor; the extremely unorthodox interpretation of “employment” the second judge had to use to dismiss my case; and the fixation on this technicality by the appellate court, over the larger issue of free speech, despite being at the federal level. Obviously, no discovery process could be allowed, for then all the mechanisms for manipulating ‘official truth’ would be revealed, not just in my case but in countless others. We learn from this instance the extent to which current authoritarians are terrified of truth—and the reason why we must speak up all the more.
Bette readers know that I often write how terrified authoritarians are of truth. The reason we know so little about the amazingly rich Ukrainian renaissance of playwrights, poets, reporters, and free thinkers, is they were executed under Stalin.
As someone whose podcast partner is being sued by Mike Flynn and Kash Patel in an overt attempt to silence his work, and whose investigative writing partner is being sued by Donald Trump, I know how serious these challenges to our freedom are — this is fascism’s legal phase, as Jason Stanley warned us.
Lee had the courage to warn the US about the dangers of Donald Trump.
She had a duty to warn as a professional mental health expert.
My unexpected and wrongful dismissal was for insisting that I had a professional responsibility—along with many esteemed colleagues who contributed to the book I edited, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President—to speak up about the unprecedented dangers that would result from having someone like Trump in the presidency.
In the years since Lee edited ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump’ — he incited a violent coup, continues to incite violence, his stochastic terrorism was cited in the writings of mass murderers, and he has now been indicted with 37 counts under the Espionage Act for endangering US national security, and endangering the security of the Western world.
It’s not Bandy Lee that is the danger to America.
She is a hero.
We are in fascism’s legal phase, and this will not stand.
It is our duty to continue to “bring light to truth.”
This cannot stand.
We learn from this instance the extent to which current authoritarians are terrified of truth—and the reason why we must speak up all the more.— Bandy Lee
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“I say a silent prayer of thanksgiving as I walk upon the earth.”-Audrey Peterman.
“May the viral hope for truth and humanity wash away the chaos of these years.”-S.C., Bette community member
“Something Sacred never dies in almost all of us, who can hear the invitation of Truth…”-words from a Bette Dangerous community member
“Nothing but blue skies from now on…”-Irving Berlin
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