Dr. Mel Levine: Progressive, Pedophile, or Both?
23 Feb 2011, 5:25 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/us/20levine.html?_r=1&ref=melvindlevine
I was surprised no one else posted this. He evaluated me when I was a kid. He never threatened me, called me names, or tried to make me feel guilty for struggling with some things. I never heard him use the word or ran across it in his books, but his thoughts, especially on people with learning disabilities, boil down to neurodiversity. My mother adores him. She still holds out hope he was innocent. She met him several times and experienced him as so stiff that he could be on the spectrum. She thinks he might have been inadvertently creepy. I wish I could believe that, but it looks bad to me. This interview will tell those of you who have never heard of him what he thought:
[url]http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/levine.htm#Personal Background
url/]
Just glancing at the stuff in bold will give you the gist. I was stunned when the first allegations of child molestation came out in 2009. It came out after the New York Times article was written that his death was suicide in the wake of more allegations. The only question in my mind now is the degree to which his motives were altruistic and the degree to which he wanted to get at young boys. What do you guys think? Did anyone else admire him before these stories broke? Did anyone else know about him at all? Does anyone have something anything to say?
23 Feb 2011, 9:57 pm
I can only add my theories here as I've never heard of this person before. Quite possible that he could easily manipulate and take advantage of his patients since certain learning disabilities and PDDs can make you much more gullible and naive to such deception.
24 Feb 2011, 2:06 pm
I was surprised no one else posted this. He evaluated me when I was a kid. He never threatened me, called me names, or tried to make me feel guilty for struggling with some things. I never heard him use the word or ran across it in his books, but his thoughts, especially on people with learning disabilities, boil down to neurodiversity. My mother adores him. She still holds out hope he was innocent. She met him several times and experienced him as so stiff that he could be on the spectrum. She thinks he might have been inadvertently creepy. I wish I could believe that, but it looks bad to me. This interview will tell those of you who have never heard of him what he thought:
[url]http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/levine.htm#Personal Background
url/]
Just glancing at the stuff in bold will give you the gist. I was stunned when the first allegations of child molestation came out in 2009. It came out after the New York Times article was written that his death was suicide in the wake of more allegations. The only question in my mind now is the degree to which his motives were altruistic and the degree to which he wanted to get at young boys. What do you guys think? Did anyone else admire him before these stories broke? Did anyone else know about him at all? Does anyone have something anything to say?
I really hope it's not true. I have all his books and found them very informative and helpful. It seems like he really took a lot of time to pay attention to kids. It just makes me sick at heart to hear this and I hope your positive experience is the norm and the allegations are false. You just never know. I don't have anything to base a guess on and since he's dead there will be no jury who decides. I hope it wasn't true.
24 Feb 2011, 10:42 pm
I think so, too. So far, the allegations of abuse seem to come from his pediatric practice, but who knows what else may come out?
24 Feb 2011, 10:45 pm
There will be a jury. Mel Levine is dead, but the class action suit lives on. It makes me heartsick, too. From the articles I have seen, it looks bad.
