Top Interrogation Psychologist at Torture Prisons Should Not be Given a Leadership Role at Universities

Dr. Larry James was the Chief Psychologist at Guantanamo Bay Prison in 2003 and 2007-2008 and Abu Ghraib Prison in 2004 during the height of torture abuse. According to the International Human Rights Clinic of Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program Dr. James was a part of a group,

“Whose job it was to advise on and participate in the interrogations, and help to create an environment designed to break down prisoners. Specifically during this tenure boys and men were threatened with rape and death for themselves and their family members; sexually, culturally, and religiously humiliated; forced naked; deprived of sleep; subjected to sensory deprivation…(and) the evidence indicates that abuse of this kind was systemic, that BSCT health professionals played an integral role in its planning and practice”.

The Center for Torture Accountability keeps careful and comprehensive documentation of people and organizations that create and justify torture and have identified and archived Dr. Larry James as doing such.

To hire Dr. James in a leadership role with the University of Missouri-Columbia would be a mistake. It would send the wrong message not only to staff, students, and other faculty across the University of Missouri system, but the entire nation. Our universities should not reward Dr. James with a leadership position because of his violations of international law, human rights, and ethics. I strongly recommend these legitimate and honest concerns be reviewed and Dr. James be denied a position with the University of Missouri-Columbia