A Pasco nonprofit, the Silent Majority Foundation, is suing Washington State University, saying an associate professor's rights were violated after she participated in a roundtable that was critical of the COVID-19 vaccine.
After the resulting WSU investigation, Dr. Renata Moon's contract to teach at the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine was not renewed and her WSU supervisor filed a complaint about her with the Washington Medical Commission.
Moon, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, is being represented by Pete Serrano — founder of the Silent Majority, Pasco's mayor and a Republican candidate for Washington state attorney general — along with Silent Majority attorney Karen Osborne.
Moon also faced complaints from some students before she questioned the safety and need of COVID-19 vaccines for children at a December 2022 roundtable discussion led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
In 2021 some students took issue with remarks she made about race and gender discrimination and her questioning of whether the COVID vaccine was appropriate for children, according to the lawsuit.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the COVID-19 vaccine is safe for children.
As a result of the complaint and investigation, she was removed from her normal teaching schedule, according to the Silent Majority Foundation.
"Both of these investigations have made it more difficult for Dr. Moon to find work, even after practicing for 25 years as a pediatrician with a completely clean record," the Silent Majority Foundation said in a news release. "It also caused her to lose her pension, which would have been vested in another year, and to lose her health insurance."
The Silent Majority maintains that Moon suffered retaliation for exercising her First Amendment right of free speech.
Student COVID, race complaints
The lawsuit said she had good student evaluations before the 2021 student complaints.
Statements that were then considered "bias and microaggression" included saying, "I don't see color," and "Which of my friends are Black, I don't know," according to the lawsuit.
She also said, "I don't believe in the concept of white privilege," and, "Sexism is far worse than racism," according to the lawsuit.
Another student wrote in an evaluation that some of the anecdotes she shared were not culturally sensitive and seemed to make fun of people in a mean-spirited way.
Moon later explained that some of the comments that led to complaints were meant to say that "all people should be considered equal."
She also was accused of discounting scientific evidence with comments such as, "If people are at risk, they should wear masks," and, "I am not going to get the vaccine," according to the lawsuit.
Some of her comments about COVID came while socializing and students asked her about the patients she had treated that week. She said that she thought children should go back to school because they were at low risk of serious outcomes from COVID-19 and that she was seeing teenagers with depression, anxiety and self harm because of social isolation, according to the lawsuit.
Students also asked for her opinion on the COVID vaccine and she said she was worried about how new mRNA vaccines would work and their long-term side effects.
"Without the ability to have robust conversations and debates, especially as it pertains to our health, we are at the mercy of others who cannot know our individualized needs and do not have our best interest at heart," the Silent Majority Foundation said in the release.
The lawsuit criticized WSU for not including students who thought she was doing a good job in its investigation, such as a student who said Moon encouraged students "to think outside the box and dig deeper into conversations."
After the investigation into student complaints, Moon was removed from teaching until she completed activities such as using a faculty coach to observe her clinical work.
Requirements were expanded to include attending faculty development classes that the lawsuit said were sometimes "politically charged and biased."
Moon questions vaccine outside WSU
When Moon did return to teaching after completing requirements from the initial investigation, she avoided discussing the COVID-19 vaccine, the lawsuit said.
However, she did continue to discuss her skepticism regarding the COVID vaccine outside the university, including at Johnson's roundtable.
Among her concerns was that if she did not tell parents the vaccine was safe and effective, she would put her medical license at risk, she said. But the vaccine came without the information she needed to give informed consent, she said.
She also discussed the policies of other countries and anecdotal information from what she had observed, which she said raised questions about the safety and need for the vaccine.
The complaint against Moon made to the Washington Medical Commission in August 2023 resulted in an investigation but no enforcement action.
The medical commission said in January 2024 that Moon had allowed her license in Washington to expire and had moved out of state.
The Silent Majority Foundation and Moon are asking the court to renew Moon's contract as a faculty member, restore her pension, clear her personnel file and retract the complaint made to the Washington Medical Commission.
The lawsuit also asks for punitive and compensatory damages.
WSU said its policy is not to comment on ongoing litigation.
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