Incoming Penn Psychiatry Chair sided with an off-campus antisemitic, anti-psychiatry group attacking a Penn emeritus professor
Penn Psychiatry Chair jumped into an endemic antisemitism that is not tied to the current problems in the Middle East but threatens healthy dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Psychiatry Chair Maria Oquendo’s condemnation of my criticism of an anti-Semitic antipsychiatry UK group had long-term consequences for my family, my reputation, and my ability to earn a livelihood from speaking and writing.
The bad responses to off-campus hate mongers who use “Nazi” for shock value by President Guttman and Department of Psychiatry Maria Oquendo in 2017 and Acting President Larry Jamison in 2024 have nothing to do with the conflict in the Middle East. Yet, these responses undermine any claim that the Penn community has no place for hatred and fear-mongering.
Worse, I am currently being verminized and kept from earning a living as a speaker and writer by the anti-semites who have quoted the Psychiatry chair’s comments well over 1000,000 times.
How can the Penn and international community hold difficult discussions about the conflict in the Middle East when a Penn Med Chair sides with anti-Semites and punishes an eminent Penn emeritus professor?
2013: As an emeritus professor, I begin life as an independent scholar and digital nomad
In 2013, I transitioned from tenured full professor to emeritus status at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. My wife and I attended the annual dinner hosted by President Amy Gutmann at the Penn University President's House at 3838 Walnut, honoring the small group of professors making that transition that year.
When we received the personal letter from President Gutmann inviting the two of us, I wondered aloud whether there would be a surprise appearance of a student dressed as a suicide bomber. At the 2007 annual Halloween bash at the President’s House, a photo of Gutmann posing with a student dressed in a suicide bomber’s costume made it to the Jerusalem Post.
University President's House at 3838 Walnut Amy Gutman with non-Muslim student
[I admit to not respecting Gutmann after she let Penn Psychiatry Chair Dwight Evans off the hook for being an author on a ghostwritten manuscript crafted to report results favorable to Pharma. The move split Penn and its Bioethics Center off from a large international group of us who were opposed to the corruption of psychiatry by conflicts of interest but not anti-psychiatry.]
There was no such clowning at the dinner. The event was expertly planned and executed with exquisite attention to detail. Amy Gutmann greeted us at the door and engaged my wife in a chitchat conversation. At the start of the dinner, Gutmann amazed us with an odd summary of my achievements to the small, esteemed group.
We were among the last to leave after the dinner. Amy gave Melany and Jim (we were magically now on a first-name basis) some gifts, including Waterford crystal and a special box for Melany of the handcrafted chocolates accompanying the after-dinner drinks.
Off to Europe
Soon, Melany and I were off to Europe on an adventure as digital nomads. Melany quit her job in Wilmington, Delaware, as a Montessori primary school teacher and writer of STEM curriculum content. She was set on developing a web-based fine linen distribution business. We relaxed in Madeira, a Portuguese island off the coast of Africa, where food and drink are cheap and some of the finest linen in the world is handcrafted.
We bounced around Europe for about half the year and contemplated selling our condo in Philadelphia Center City. It often made economic sense for us to go where I was asked to present and had airfare covered.
I gave workshops on how to write high-impact papers and presentations to university and scientific conference audiences on skeptical critics' role in improving science's trustworthiness. I knew that my popularity was partly because I enthusiastically filled a unique niche meeting some important needs and partly because I charged extraordinarily low fees with little negotiation of higher rates.
I cared less than I should have because I could see no end to a self-sustaining activity that left me plenty of time to read and write while accompanying Melany to museums and cultural sites in different European cities.
Since high school, I have dreamed of being a nomadic independent scholar writing in clean, well-lit places and European cafes. This romantic dream was planted by a lay Catholic monk when I was a teen living on welfare with a divorced mother and a disabled half-brother. Davey never met any developmental milestones after birth in a Navy hospital in Norfolk, VA.
Circa 1955, Jimmie Coyne Jr. celebrates his request to withdraw from kindergarten and be allowed to enroll in the fall in first grade as a 5-year-old without prejudice. My mother did the advocacy. She was a poor, timid Irish-Portuguese woman who wanted the best for her son.
In hindsight, the lay monk probably had never been to Europe. His intellectualism was limited to Father Walter O’Farrell’s 1800-page Guide to Summa Theologia, with its long digressions about the dangers of liberalism in the era of the New Deal. At the Holy Family Monastery Retreat, I was personally told I could go to a university, but I was warned that there were liberals there.
I had no idea what liberals were; maybe something like communists. I had crummy grades but got in everywhere I applied, mostly only with full-tuition scholarship awards, which meant I could not afford to go. Carnegie Tech was the only college that could offer me a financial aid package equal to my family's income on welfare. I was accepted into the Engineering and Science College. I could not major in psychology or other liberal disciplines because these majors were in Margaret Morrison College for Women, and the more modest financial aid packages there were limited to women.
2015
The University of Groningen in the Netherlands was already informally providing me generous travel funds as a consultant but no salary, starting with a sabbatical year in 2010. Penn allowed me to get paid during a sabbatical with legal but creative bookkeeping, but I was barred from the payment being made through an official appointment with a percent effort.
As my retirement from Penn approached, I proposed to UMCG Dean Sibrandes Poppema that I be given a 20% faculty appointment. He eagerly granted me an appointment as a Full Professor without committing me to the amount of work I was prepared to do.
Then, in 2015, I was awarded a Carnegie Centenary Visiting Professorship at Stirling in the College of Midwifery and Nursing. Under the award, I gave talks in pubs, colloquiums, and writing workshops, averaging one to three a week. Some of these talks, like the one at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, irritated Peter Kinderman. I invited him to share the podium at any of these talks to draw a bigger crowd.
Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia Royal Edinburgh
Peter Kinderman forgave people on social media who praised my talk and said they enjoyed it. But this moment of magnanimity was not genuine. He soon escalated efforts to silence me and pressured institutions to cut their ties with me.
Some of these efforts focused on the University of Pennsylvania. First, in direct tweets to official Penn Twitter accounts, self-proclaimed mentally ill persons demanded that Penn cut ties, and then later, in letters to the upper echelon administrators. In 2017, the Penn Psychiatry Chair responded to a letter.
For more on the UK groups embracing a false account that Jews fleeing the Holocaust were architects of the Holocaust, see my blog post with links to sources.
2017: Amy Guttman manages neo-Nazi flyers on the outskirts of the Penn campus, and the incoming Psychiatry chair arms a UK antisemitic, antipsychiatry group with a condemnation of me.
April 24, 2017, neo-Nazi flyers were posted in the vicinity of campus by an off-campus, nation-side group.
My Facebook memories from seven years ago, on April 24, 2017, included an email from Amy Guttman about neo-Nazi flyers around the outskirts of campus.
The email from President Amy Guttman is reproduced below. It arrived while I was debating Razib Khan on Twitter.
A Message to the Penn Community
From
Amy Gutmann, President
Vincent Price, Provost
Craig Carnaroli, Executive Vice President
This past weekend, some neo-Nazi flyers were found posted at several locations in the vicinity of campus. These appear to have been circulated by off-campus groups known to be bent on sowing fear and discord and targeting campuses within our region and nationwide.
Although the flyers in question are no longer posted, we think it important to take this opportunity to remind the community of our shared conviction that hatred and fear-mongering have no place at Penn.
Our University strives to be a place that is safe and welcoming for all students, faculty, and staff. Expressing hate or animus for any group of individuals is vile and reprehensible. We underscore our commitment to a supportive, respectful, diverse, and open campus, and we encourage the exercise of free expression rights to counter misguided hate with stronger words of truth and mutual respect. We also encourage anyone troubled or in need of support to reach out for help. Please know that Penn stands with you, and any of the offices below can provide you with assistance and guidance.
Amy Guttman’s email protected no one from the hateful flyers that were soon removed.
November 21, 2017: An off-campus (UK) antisemitic group demands that Penn Psychiatry Chair Maria Oquendo condemn me. She complies in a widely circulated letter.
Despite being a Professor Emeritus of Psychology in Psychiatry, I had never met the new chair of psychiatry, and she received no input from me. I only learned of her response when Kinderman’s anti-Semitic group posted the email on social media.
The attack was planned on a closed Facebook page. The group's antisocial nature was obvious in earlier tweets to the University of Pennsylvania's official Twitter account.
The group was seizing on one passage in my heavily accessed blog post and claiming the article was just a fig leaf for promoting adult sexual exploitation of children.
The serious scholarly question that the blog addressed:
Scores on the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) checklist (or ACC) are widely used in making claims about the causal influence of childhood trauma on mental and physical health problems. Does anyone making these claims consider how the checklist is put together and consider what a summary score might mean?
2018
On March 1, 2018, I made a request to Psychiatry Chair Maria Oquendo regarding her collusion with the anti-Semitic group, cc’ing Larry Jamison.
I appeal to you because these alleged quotes invoke your authority as Chair of Psychiatry, but implicitly as 2016 –2017 President of the American Psychiatric Association, an organization that took a strong stand during your term on public statements by members about persons they have never met.
I have two requests:
1) I am formally requesting copies of all communications you have had with anyone about me; this is most critically necessary for communications from any of the aforementioned trolls; and
2) I would like a clarifying statement from you that makes it clear that you and I have never met, that I retired before you arrived at Penn, and that you have no personal or professional opinion about my extensive internet presence.
I am available to meet to discuss these requests with you. I hope that we can amicably put this episode behind us.
The Chair of Penn Psychiatry did not respond to me. Instead, I received a demeaning and threatening letter from Sean V. Burke, Esq., Associate General Counsel for the University of Pennsylvania.
2024
The Psychiatry Chair’s comments are in wide, uncontrolled circulation, and damage cannot be undone.
In an immediate and stronglyworded reply, the Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, described Professor Coyne's behaviour as 'reprehensible'. She regretted the ‘abuse’ that colleagues had been subjected
to and joined us in condemning his ‘appalling’ language and actions. We welcome this statement and believe it reflects well on the Faculty.
The Chair also clarified that ‘Dr. Coyne has not worked at the University of Pennsylvania since 2013 and we do not anticipate any relationship with him in the future.’
And
Given this appalling history of misrepresentation, harassment, abuse and criminal behaviour, we advise people to be extremely cautious in their interactions with Professor Coyne and very sceptical about the accuracy of any blogs, articles or claims by him, either personal or academic.
Penn’s Interim President Larry Jamison announced a portal was established so that members of the Penn community could submit a complaint or concern, either identifying themselves or anonymously. If a complainant provided an email, they would receive an immediate email acknowledging receipt of their complaint and a follow-up email describing how their issue was resolved.
I submitted a response and heard nothing back.
To Be Continued
“A president alone cannot move Penn forward, but all of us, together — we can make Penn soar.” - Interim President Larry Jamison
With your support, I can triumph over this hate and harassment and regain my voice.
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For more information, please get in touch with me at jimcoyneakacoyneoftherealm@substack.com