On Friday, Yale Law School (YLS) fired Dr. Helyeh Doutaghi in violation of her basic democratic rights. Falling in line with the witch-hunting campaign directed by the Trump administration against pro-Palestinian students and academics, YLS also lied about the events leading up to and the reasons for her firing.

The campaign to remove Doutaghi began on March 4 when YLS placed her on administrative leave based on information published online by Jewish Onliner, an AI generated pro-Zionist website which claimed she was a member of a terrorist organization. Throughout the ordeal, Doutaghi has maintained that her opposition to the Israeli genocide in Gaza and her pro-Palestinian views were well known at Yale when she was hired.

Doutaghi, an Iranian-born law scholar, was hired as the Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project at Yale in 2023 and held the position of Associate Research Scholar at YLS, was informed she had to submit to an inquisition at Yale by a representative of a New Haven, Connecticut law firm with extensive ties to the Zionist state and the US foreign policy establishment.

In an unsigned statement from YLS, published in full by Yale News on Monday, the university administration falsified the record and claimed that it had “repeatedly requested to meet with Ms. Doutaghi and her attorney to obtain clarifying information and resolve this matter.” It furthermore claimed that Doutaghi “has refused to meet to provide any responses to critical questions, including whether she ever engaged in prohibited activity with organizations or individuals that were placed on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list (‘SDN’ list).”

However, Doutaghi’s attorney Eric Lee explained in a post on Twitter/X that, “It is not true, as Yale alleges, that Dr. Doutaghi refused to answer questions or was non-cooperative. Yale made a decision to fire her without a fair process. Another capitulation to Trump by a major university.”

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In a review of the events leading up to Doutaghi’s termination, Lee exposed that the position of YLS as false:

It is not Dr. Doutaghi who refused to communicate with Yale, but the reverse. On Thursday, March 20, Yale Law School’s (YLS) general counsel wrote me asking to speak to Dr. Doutaghi by March 27 about her political associations which turned out to be generated by a pro-Israeli Al-bot that routinely spreads misinformation, per a Haaretz exposure from January 2025. The March 20 email said, “if there are terms or conditions that would encourage your client to meet with our counsel, please let us know.” I replied that day acknowledging receipt. The next day, Friday, March 21, I wrote YLS’s general counsel as follows: “Dear Counsel: We are amenable to considering answering written questions by the 27th if they come from your office and not outside counsel.”

Lee continued:

I did not hear back from Yale over the weekend and sent a follow up email on Monday, March 24, “reaching out to make sure my email Friday didn’t fall through the cracks.” Later that day, YLS’s general counsel replied saying it was demanding a live interview with the same outside counsel rejecting written answers, saying, “We must be able to ask her questions, consider her answers, and ask her follow up questions in real time.” This email also rejected our efforts to exclude outside counsel with ties to Israel and weapons manufacturers. Upon request, Yale agreed to a one-day extension to the March 27 response deadline until 3 pm on March 28. That morning, I wrote Yale as follows [see italics below]. This email was unanswered until the termination notice was sent.

We believe this correspondence confirms that Yale was only interested in terminating Dr. Doutaghi and not in investigating any underlying facts, damaging her life in disregard of basic notions of fairness and due process:

“10:44 AM Friday, March 28:

“Dear Counsel: In your earlier email, you had indicated that you’d be willing to agree to conditions so we can help get you the information you need. I am confident, based on my knowledge of the facts and Dr. Doutaghi’s integrity and character, that she will be able to completely assuage your concerns if given a fair chance.

“We proposed three reasonable conditions: 1) that the questions and answers take place in writing, and 2) that the counsel with a clear conflict of interest not be the one posing the questions, and 3) that some assurances on confidentiality be given due to the concerns we have over Dr. Doutaghi’s safety and security—concerns with which you yourself had expressed sympathy in an earlier email exchange.

“It now appears you are not interested in agreeing to any of these reasonable conditions, which leads us to wonder why you offered conditions in the first place. To clarify, as I mentioned earlier, we would be happy to answer your questions in writing and also provide you with an opportunity to ask a round of follow-up questions based on our answers.

“Perhaps it will help if I explain the basis for our request for written questions. Given the present political climate in the United States, we cannot put any faith in the present presidential administration’s ability to properly enforce the country’s immigration laws. On the contrary, the administration is deporting many student visa holders because they have attended protests, written op-eds in school papers, or otherwise spoken out against US and Israeli policy. This is not lawful and is presently subject to litigation in numerous venues. On top of this, the administration and its allies in Congress are using their power to pressure universities to take action against people like Dr. Doutaghi who have not violated the law, who have been nothing but truthful, but who are nevertheless concerned that their lawfulness and truthfulness will not protect them from the unlawful policies of the present presidential administration. Given the concerning state of affairs in this country, we want the ability to give answers honestly and precisely.

“We stand by to answer your questions in writing. We are confused as to why answering questions in writing would not satisfy your concerns about Yale’s legal obligations here. We hope to cooperate and are prepared to answer questions A.S.A.P.

“Thank you,

“Eric”

This chronology and record of communication between Dr. Doutaghi’s attorney and Yale Law School’s counsel establishes that the version of events given for the firing is both false and designed to conform to a decision that had already been made by YLS to terminate the law scholar for her political views well before any “questions” were to be asked.

The attack on Dr. Doutaghi is part of the deepening assault on foreign students and academics who have a legal right to be in the US but have been targeted by the Trump administration for their opposition to the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza.

• Momodou Taal, 31, a British-Gambian PhD student at Cornell University, decided on Monday to leave the US after his basic rights were repeatedly violated over his pro-Palestinian activism. After he filed a lawsuit against President Trump for the executive order violating the free speech rights of international students, the administration revoked his visa and sought to have him arrested, detained or deported before his lawsuit could be heard.
• Mahmoud Khalil, 30, a Columbia University graduate student and lawful permanent resident, was picked up last month in his apartment building by ICE officials in front of his eight-months pregnant wife, a US citizen, handcuffed and carted off to a detention facility in Louisiana without charges or any explanation of why he was being abducted. A federal appeals court judge ruled that his case must be heard in New Jersey, rejecting a motion by the Trump administration to move it to Louisiana which would route any challenges in the case to the more conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
• Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, a Tufts University PhD candidate and Fulbright scholar was abducted on the streets of Boston by masked agents, forced into an unmarked vehicle and transported to the same detention facility in Louisiana.
• Yunseo Chung, 21, a South Korean permanent resident and Columbia University student who has lived in the US since she was seven years old, has sued President Trump and other White House officials for attempts to arrest and detain her. 

In a powerful statement on Twitter/X, Doutaghi wrote of her summary firing:

This act is part of a broader, violent crackdown on students and scholars across the country, many of whom exist in precarious positions. What we are witnessing at institutions like Yale, Cornell, Columbia, and Harvard is the normalization of fascistic governance. From the kidnapping of students and scholars for exercising their free speech rights to criminalizing, doxxing, suspensions, and institutional gag orders now commonplace on campuses, universities have become active collaborators in silencing dissent and criminalizing resistance. Functioning as effective sites of surveillance and oppression, these institutions—in collaboration with the repressive state apparatus—are setting new and dangerous precedents for rules of engagement across the country.

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Doutaghi also pointed to the widespread support for her that was organized after she was targeted:

They tried to silence me and failed. Over one thousand professors, lawyers, scholars, students, and organizers rose in solidarity, condemning Yale’s capitulation to Zionist repression and its complicity in a Zionist-McCarthyite witch hunt against me.

She continued,

Neither YLS nor any Zionist report (or both!) has presented a single shred of evidence demonstrating any unlawful connection or act on my part. I have been terminated based on unproven allegations, absent any due process or substantiated claim. For a full account of the facts of my engagement with Yale—and to correct their false claims please refer to the statement issued by my attorney, Mr. Eric Lee. This sets a chilling precedent. If any Al bot—or anyone at all—accuses a Yale faculty or student of wrongdoing, that alone can now suffice to end their career. This is the state of the U.S. legal academy today: where due process and the rule of law are taught in classrooms but abandoned in practice.

Doutaghi concluded by placing the attack on her rights within historical context:

This is a pivotal moment in history and in the decline of the American empire. The US regime is coordinating violent repression of the domestic front with an escalation of war on the external front. Across multiple fronts, including the ongoing genocide in Palestine by the US terrorist Zionist proxy in our region; the savage bombing of Yemen; the ethnic cleansing in Syria by US proxies; and Israeli assaults on Lebanon and daily threats against Iran in both official discourse and media propaganda, the U.S. is actively driving the world toward a broader war in West Asia.

To sustain the illusion of domestic stability, the machinery of authoritarian power must suppress dissent—targeting anyone who resists these policies in order to create a chilling effect on speech and silence opposition. This suppression of dissent is meant to sustain US and Zionist impunity in the face of rising resistance to their genocidal imperialism in West Asia and beyond. The US government is trying to stop the inevitable. But nothing will stop the demise of the American empire—and nothing will stop history from remembering it as one of the most brutal empires the world has ever known.