I Was Suspended for Pro-Palestine Speech Amid AI-Generated Smears

My name is Helyeh Doutaghi. I am a scholar of international law and geopolitical economy. My research engages with Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), postcolonial critiques of law, and the global political economy of sanctions. I have specifically examined the mechanisms and consequences of economic warfare on Iran, as well as the forms of knowledge produced in International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to obscure and shield U.S. military operations from accountability. On October 1, 2023, I was appointed Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project and joined the team. I also held the position of Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School (YLS), a non-tenured faculty role without teaching responsibilities.

On the morning of March 3rd, I was notified of an online report about me. An obscure AI-powered right-wing Zionist platform called “Jewish Onliner” published a report falsely accusing me of being a “terrorist.” Rather than defend me, the Yale Law School moved within less than 24 hours of learning about the report to place me on leave.

I was given only a few hours’ notice by the administration to attend an interrogation based on far-right AI-generated allegations against me, while enduring a flood of online harassment, death threats, and abuse by Zionist trolls, exacerbating ongoing unprecedented distress and complications both at work and at home. I endured all of this while fasting, and my request for religious accommodations during Ramadan was dismissed. Just a few hours later, YLS placed me on leave, revoked my IT access — including email — and banned me from campus. I was afforded no due process and no reasonable time to consult with my attorney.

Rather than investigate the source of these allegations first, the nation’s “top law school” accepted them at face value, and shifted the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused, treating me, prima facie, as guilty until proven otherwise. Whether Yale Law School’s attorneys knowingly relied on AI-fabricated claims or simply chose willful ignorance remains unanswered.

To conduct the interrogation, Yale Law School retained David Ring from the law firm Wiggin and Dana — an attorney whose public profile includes “Israel” listed as a “service” he provides and whose portfolio boasts advising “the world’s largest aerospace and defense companies.” Twice appointed by the U.S. State Department as a Special Compliance Officer, his career is deeply embedded in the very industries that sustain genocide and war crimes in Palestine. When I raised my concerns about the potential conflict of interests posed by his participation in this process, YLS dismissed them, stating there was “no concern with his ability to conduct a fair interview.” It is reprehensible that YLS would appoint a counsel who profits from the machinery of Palestinian death to “interview” an employee about their public anti-genocide and pro-Palestine positions.

Yale has engaged in bad faith throughout this “process.” This became evident from the administration’s insistence on an immediate interrogation with an unreasonable timeline, from the type of attorney hired to “interview” me, from the fact that this outside counsel refused to answer questions about procedural protections, and from the denial of my request for a brief religious accommodation. YLS’s singular concern with maintaining the approval of the Zionist backers who bankroll their complicity in genocide led the organization to pressure me into an interrogation that I had every reason to believe was designed not to uncover the truth, but to justify a predetermined outcome. For further details from my lawyer see his note at the end of this statement.

What is clear is that YLS actions constitute a blatant act of retaliation against Palestinian solidarity — a violation of my constitutional rights, free speech, academic freedom, and fundamental due process rights. I am being targeted for one reason alone: for speaking the truth about the genocide of the Palestinian people that Yale University is complicit in.

The Endowment Justice Coalition (EJC) has exposed Yale’s deep financial ties to weapons manufacturers, using publicly available tax filings. The university’s asset managers include JLL Partners, linked to General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, and Farallon Capital, which invests in HowMet Aerospace, a company that produces key components for US F-35 fighter jets used by Israel in committing genocide.

As a movement scholar who stands unequivocally against imperialism and the U.S.-Zionist genocide, my presence — particularly as a Muslim-Iranian woman at an elite university that is deeply entangled in the material and ideological structures of genocide — is intolerable to the forces of fascism that are ruling this country.

The attacks against me, including defamatory smears amplified by fascist trolls, are emblematic of a broader official policy of this authoritarian regime to weaponize AI to target students, faculty, and organizers who dare to speak out against genocide, systemic starvation, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. This crackdown, now formalized under the recently announced “Catch and Revoke” initiative, marks a dangerous escalation in state repression — one explicitly designed to foster an atmosphere of fear across university campuses. It should cause profound concern to all defenders of free speech that those infamous words, “Are you now or have you ever been a member of…” are once again becoming a common refrain. We are entering an era of Zionist McCarthyism — a time when dissent is invariably met with crackdown, careers are destroyed for speaking the truth, and the mere act of standing in solidarity with Palestine liberation is treated as a crime. Just as McCarthyism sought to crush anti-imperialist resistance through fear and repression, this new iteration aims to silence, intimidate, and purge those who challenge Zionist settler-colonialism and U.S. imperialism.

This is not a display of strength; it is the last refuge of a crumbling order — an empire in decline, resorting to brute repression to stifle and crush those who expose its unraveling hegemony.

Knowledge must be in the service of the oppressed. If what we learn and teach does not compel and empower us to use our pens and voices to challenge systems of oppression, then it is meaningless — an intellectual exercise stripped of purpose. Western academic institutions cultivate a cowardly class of intellectual collaborators who write critically about oppression yet uphold it through their silence when their privileges are threatened. Columbia University’s complicity in the latest wave of repression against its students exemplifies this.

This is how fascism wins: not just through brute force, but through remaining reactive in the face of oppression, and through the complicity of those who claim to stand for justice yet choose to stay silent when fascism strikes. The past 17 months have proved that many within the Western “left” are unwilling to make the kinds of sacrifices required to end the genocide. In academia and outside, they profit — both personally and professionally — from the very structures of genocide and imperialism that they claim to oppose. Their comfort is purchased at the expense of the oppressed. A clear choice now confronts the Western left: either rise to the challenge to fight back the tide of repression, or continue in silence at the service of genocide.

But I will not be silenced. I am proud to have used my voice and my pen to support the struggle for Palestinian liberation. They may strip me of my rights and privileges, but my commitment to a free Palestine and to the complete dismantling of U.S. imperialism across the world is not contingent on institutional recognition or material stability. It is rooted in the collective struggle of the oppressed but powerful, in the ongoing anti-colonial struggles in our region, and in the certainty that liberation will come — not through the benevolence of empire under ‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican’ parties that are unified in the genocide of our people, but through its political defeat.

Living under a fascist dictatorship in the U.S. can feel suffocating, creating the illusion that we are isolated and outnumbered. But the reality is the opposite — we stand with the vast majority of the world, from Palestine to Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and beyond. Ours is the struggle of the oppressed but powerful, the wretched of the Earth.

The relentless campaign to crush Palestinian solidarity through mass arrests, intimidation, harassment, and censorship has failed. That failure is why the state now turns to brute force, as seen in the latest escalation at Columbia, where protestors have been brutally beaten, and Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil — now a political prisoner — has been forcibly abducted by the state in collaboration with the university. I stand in full solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil. This is a flagrant violation of the most basic constitutional rights, marking yet another step in the United States’ descent into lawless tyranny.

The Israeli settler colonial regime is suffering a profound crisis. The defeat of its propaganda machine — so vital to its survival — has been accelerated by its defeat on the ground in Gaza. The empire cannot sustain itself without intellectual and institutional support, and thus, the suppression I, and many others in the U.S. academia and beyond, have been subjected to is not incidental; it is structural. The U.S. government, reconfigured into a fascist security apparatus, is not merely suppressing dissent — it is preparing for war, both abroad and at home. Elite institutions and universities, tasked with reproducing this system and training the next generation to defend and sustain it, have transformed into surveillance mechanisms, ensuring that voices of resistance are eradicated to enable the atrocities committed abroad. But the university is not just a site of repression — it is a site of struggle. We must recognize it as such and rise to reclaim power over these institutions or, where necessary, dismantle and disrupt them. The time for passive critique has long passed; we must act collectively to expose, challenge, and resist the role of Western academia in upholding empire and genocide.

Call to Action

Yale Law School must be held accountable. I call for an immediate and effective boycott of Yale Law School, and a collective demand for Yale’s full disclosure and divestment from genocide. Furthermore, Yale must take concrete and effective measures to rectify the harm it has inflicted upon me, and be held responsible for the damages it has caused; and make a statement publicly restoring my reputation.

Not a single professor at Yale has stood up to publicly oppose what Yale has done to me so far. Across the country, academics and university administrators — with some honorable exceptions — have played a cowardly and collaborationist role in facilitating the attack on democratic rights. Those who are too concerned with their salaries and careers to stand up against the unprecedented attack on free speech are complicit in their own subjugation and the erosion of the community’s collective strength. I call on every professor, scholar, researcher, student, and member of the community to stand up and speak out publicly against Yale Law School operating as an extension of the fascist state apparatus.

I will not be intimidated. I will not retreat. I remain steadfast in my commitment to the liberation of our peoples from US imperialism, to justice, to truth, and to the unbreakable solidarity that binds us in the struggle for a Free Palestine.

Onwards, whatever it takes,
Helyeh Doutaghi

My lawyer, Eric Lee, issues the following statement:

I was retained by Dr. Doutaghi in the late morning of March 4. At roughly 2:30 pm that afternoon, I received an email from Yale’s office of general counsel linking to the “Jewish Onliner” article and indicating that Dr. Doutaghi was being investigated as a result of that article. I was then contacted by Yale’s outside counsel who insisted that Dr. Doutaghi agree to an interview that same afternoon. I asked for a discussion with outside counsel and we spoke at 4 pm. I inquired as to what procedures would be in place for the interview and explained that due to previously planned meetings I would not be able to participate in an interview that same afternoon. Outside counsel asked me to send an email proposing next steps, which I did at 5:30, roughly one hour after our phone call ended. In that email I indicated that we were requesting a brief religious accommodation due to the fact that Dr. Doutaghi had been fasting for Ramadan while enduring intense harassment and violence online, and would be better prepared to discuss next steps the following day after Dr. Doutaghi received a good night’s sleep. At the same time I sent this email, I received an email from Yale’s office of general counsel indicating Dr. Doutaghi was placed on administrative leave for allegedly failing to respond to the interview request.

After a Google search of “Jewish Onliner,” we learned that in January 2025, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz had investigated and exposed “Jewish Onliner” as a type of AI-generated bot that spreads misinformation to counter pro-Palestinian speech online. Haaretz also indicated that the bot may have ties to the Israeli government and military. In light of this information, I wrote Yale on March 5 asking (1) whether they were aware of the illegitimacy of the source, (2) if not, whether they had taken any steps to determine the legitimacy of the source before rushing to judgment against Dr. Doutaghi, and (3) whether the rush to force Dr. Doutaghi into an immediate interview was aimed at preventing us from having time to investigate the legitimacy of the source. Yale declined to answer these questions.

Yale is bending the knee to Trump’s effort to suppress free speech, crush academic freedom and establish a dictatorship. Whether he succeeds will depend entirely on the response of the population. We urge everyone to stand up and come to the defense of Dr. Doutaghi and the democratic principles of free speech and due process which are fundamental to us all. We repeat our demand that Yale reinstate Dr. Doutaghi, give her access to campus and email, and take public action to restore her credibility and reputation.