The chairman of Columbia University’s department of psychiatry was suspended Wednesday, “effective immediately,” after he referred on Twitter to a dark-skinned model as possibly a “freak of nature.”
“Whether a work of art or a freak of nature, she is a beautiful sight to behold,” department president Jeffrey A. Lieberman tweeted Monday in response to a photo of Nyakim Gatwech† Mrs. Gatwech is an American model of South Sudanese descent; her fans call her the ‘Queen of the Dark’.
The Twitter account of Dr. Lieberman was unavailable on Wednesday afternoon, but screenshots of his post were widely available.
He did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In an email to his colleagues on Tuesday before his suspension, he apologized for the tweet, describing it as “racist and sexist”. He added that he was “deeply ashamed” of his “prejudice and stereotypical assumptions”.
“An apology from me to the black community, to women and to all of you is not enough,” wrote Dr. Lieberman in the email. “I have hurt many and I am beginning to understand the work ahead of us to make the necessary personal changes and over time to regain your trust.”
dr. Lieberman, who specializes in schizophrenia and is considered one of the foremost psychiatrists in the nation, was also removed from his position as chief psychiatrist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. That decision is final, a Columbia University spokesperson said.
Department leaders convened a meeting for faculty and staff on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the situation and announce that an interim chairman will be appointed. Several hundred people attended the Zoom meeting, according to one person who attended, and the tone was serious and serious. The head of the hospital described the tweet as “outrageous,” the person said.
The post attracted negative attention from a number of medical professionals online, many of whom were black women.
Elle Lett, a medical student and postdoctoral researcher in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote a: Twitter thread and a Medium post on the comments.
“If you don’t understand how racist language is harmful when your profession is supposed to take care of people’s mental health, you are not qualified to be a psychiatrist at all, let alone the head of the top program,” Ms Lett said in a statement. statement. interview.
Columbia University’s department of psychiatry is one of the largest of its kind in the country and has consistently taken top positions, including on US News & World Report’s list of best hospitals.
Robert Klitzman, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia, described the episode as “unfortunate” and said it “really highlights how deep and pervasive some of our own unconscious biases can be.”
He noted that Dr. Lieberman had conducted important research into schizophrenia and other disorders for decades.
“I think this incident signals the need to always be vigilant in our awareness of our own unconscious biases,” said Dr. Klitzman.
The American Psychiatric Association apologized in January 2021 for helping to maintain structural racism in psychiatry, saying it allowed for “discriminatory and detrimental actions” within the organization and “racist practices in psychiatric treatment.”
The organization pledged to “make amends,” including by expanding access to psychiatric care for people of color.
White psychiatrists have pathologised black people’s behavior for hundreds of years and presented racist beliefs as scientific fact.
dr. Considered the “father” of American psychiatry, Benjamin Rush believed that black skin was the result of a mild form of leprosy.
And many prominent psychiatrists argued after Reconstruction that black Americans were not fit for independent living, calling them “primitive” or “wild.”
The mail from Dr. Lieberman came in response to a tweet that Ms. Gatwech called “it” and described her as the “most beautiful among the black beauties.” It was erroneously stated that she was in the Guinness Book of World Records because of her dark skin.
“Dark skin is normal, dark skin is only part of the normal variation of human existence,” said Ms. Lett. “Stigmatizing language has psychological consequences. It hurts people.”