Engaging conversations of national importance
An Amici Curiae brief at the US Supreme Court
I published an informed opinion in March 2025 for Minding the Campus as soon as I heard that the US Supreme Court accepted to hear the case of Kaley Chiles (see the Chiles v. Salazar link below). A month and a half later, a good friend and colleague asked me to write an Amici Curiae (Latin: Friends of the Court) brief for the oral arguments that were heard on 10/07/2025.
Many other therapists, psychologists, researchers, bioethicists, lawyers, and university deans and presidents joined us. Our goal was to provide the nine Justices as much information as possible on the seriousness of freedom of speech in psychotherapy for both the therapist and the patient. Go to adflegal.org/chiles to learn more.
To do our job to the highest standard, the freedom to think, talk, and ask uncomfortable questions are of paramount importance.
We must do so without fear!
September 2025
In this brief reflection, I focus on the necessity to return to reality so that we can understand it, rather than attack, misrepresent, or modify it.
May 2025
In this featured essay, I offer a reflection on my experience as an immigrant appreciating the US Constitutional order.
May 2025
In this essay, I argue for intellectual freedom and freedom of inquiry, offering insights from my favorite time in history, the Middle Ages, when universities were founded.
March 2025
In this essay, I argue that therapists should think and speak freely about how they help their patients.
March 2025
In this brief autobiographical reflection, I argue in favor of the dialogue between reality and the soul, which signifies the direct link between that which is and how the mind captures and understands it.
A personal touch: July 4, 2024
2024 marked 25 years of American residency and 20 years of American citizenship for me. I remain amazed at the historical experiment that the 1770s matured, culminating in 1776 with the Declaration and 1789 with the Constitution. Despite recent discontents and downright attacks on the founding values, my amazement at the backbone of the United States of America — as founded in the 18th century, defended through the victory of the Civil War, and developed all the way to the twin victories of the two World Wars — remains intact. The more I learn about it, the more I appreciate it. There is no other country in the world to have achieved the results of this historic experiment of government by the self-governed. No doubt problems have abounded from the beginning. Yet, I am not inclined to make the common mistake of confusing the principle for the instances. There have been and there will always be instances, and grave ones, of mistakes, tragedies, injuries, and injustices.
The principle is still the same: To secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
I did not choose the country of my birth anymore than I chose my parents, but I did choose the United States, although it was out of necessity and I did not know her greatness, until I awoke to the events of her birth and history. I remain in awe at her survival throughout the ideological changes of the last 200-300 years that have changed the face of the earth.
Happy Birthday, USA, and thank you!
© 2024-2025 Enika Cocoli Bowen, PhD
All rights reserved.