Iranian Academic Suspended by Yale for Alleged Terror Ties Vows to Fight ‘Fascist Dictatorship’ United States
“I will use everything and anything at my disposal to fight this fascist dictatorship of the United States.”
We recently posted a Quick Take about Helyeh Doutaghi, an Iranian legal scholar who works at Yale but was suspended pending an investigation into alleged terrorism ties.
From Campus Reform:
Yale Law School in Connecticut has recently placed one of its scholars on leave after the publication of a report exposing her alleged ties to terrorism.
The scholar is Helyeh Doutaghi, an Associate Research Scholar at the law school whose work “explores the intersections of the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), encompassing Marxist and postcolonial critiques of law.”
Alden Ferro, Senior Associate Director of Public Affairs at the school, told The Buckley Beacon: “We take these allegations extremely seriously and immediately opened an investigation into the matter to ascertain the facts,” and added that Doutaghi’s “short-term position as an associate research scholar with the LPE Project expires next month.”…
Yale Law’s decision came after the Jewish Onliner wrote that Doutaghi is part of Samidoun, a group that the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control marked as a “sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization” in October.
Now Doutaghi is back in the news because of this video, where she vows to fight the ‘fascist dictatorship’ of the United States:
BREAKING: Helyeh Doutaghi, Iranian Academic suspended by Yale University, over her ties to terrorism, openly says that she plans on committing herself to fighting the United States.
Why is she here exactly?
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) March 18, 2025
MEMRI reported on this:
Iranian academic Dr. Helyeh Doutaghi, Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy Project at Yale University, discussed her suspension in a March 14, 2025, interview on Drop Site News. Doutaghi, who was put on administrative leave due to her alleged ties with Samidoun—a U.S. Designated terrorist-linked group—and the Islamic Republic of Iran, said that Yale was aware of her activism when she was hired, and she had been led to believe that her involvement was seen as an asset. She remarked: “I will use everything and anything at my disposal to fight this fascist dictatorship of the United States.” Doutaghi criticized American institutions, particularly Ivy League universities, as tools of the “fascist project” of the United States under President Trump, calling it a “clarifying moment” to realize how empty these institutions are of intellectual integrity.
Doutaghi, an Iranian national with a Ph.D. in Legal Studies from Carleton University in Canada, is also a member of the Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran (CASI). She has appeared multiple times on Iran’s state-run English language TV channel, Press TV. Doutaghi has participated in events organized by Samidoun and its offshoot, Masar Badil. Samidoun is a Designated Terrorist Entity in Canada and is under U.S. sanctions for acting as a front to fund the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-Designated Terrorist Organization. Doutaghi was scheduled to appear in an April 2024 webinar sponsored by Samidoun and CASI alongside Khaled Barakat, a leader of Masar Badil, who has been designated a terrorist by Canada and is identified as a senior member of the PFLP by the United States.
This is all coming to light just as the Mahmoud Khalil story unfolds at Columbia University. How many more of our prestigious schools are home to this ideology? I have a feeling the problem is far worse than most Americans realize.
Featured image via Twitter video.
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Comments
Sounds insurrectiony.
Quick, find an insurrectiony District Judge.
Send her back to her Mullahs.
That was my first thought. Perhaps she should fight the fascist dictatorship of Iran.
Warming up a peacekeeper missile to fire this ungrateful bitch back to her country of origin so she can enjoy life in a Muslim paradise on earth.
A life where she is barefoot and pregnant and she is expected to condition her male offspring to die early as martyrs, and her daughters to follow in her footsteps. Brainwashed losers.
Odd that she wants to continue living in what she calls a fascist dictatorship, isn’t it? Also what sort of fascist dictatorship lets you openly criticize their leaders without the ultimate penalty being imposed?
Some of Trump’s thugs should throw a bag over her head, shove her into a van, and take her to a remote location where her feet would be tickled with a feather. Then she could be delivered back to the campus and be told, in the most stern manner, “Let that be a lesson to you!”
The worst anti-American is a Leftist American.
You’re new here, aren’t you?
Most regular readers recognize sarcasm when they see it.
Sarchasm: The gulf between good sarcasm and the average internet poster’s ability to comprehend it.
Indeed. I find the vast majority of people who declare the U.S. is fascist or a dictatorship (or both), have no experience or knowledge of what fascism or dictatorships actually are. And oddly enough, none of them are in a great hurry to leave.
If this lady thinks America is so terrible, she should go back home … where she’ll almost certainly be required to get married, submit to her husband, have 10 babies, and never work in academia again. I’m sure that’s preferable to her to being here, where she can speak her mind and teach at an Ivy League university.
It never ceases to amaze me how many of these foreign “scholars” are so quick to use the freedom uniquely available and protected in America … to criticize America for being “anti-freedom”.
*headdesk*
That’s not true. Iran has no problem with women in academia. And given how she dresses she’s probably already married with as many children as she and her husband currently want.
Ok, you got me.
Some sharia places aren’t as bad as the others.
Apparently while Iranian mullahs do treat women as second class citizens, segregate by gender, and make them wear absurd clothing lest they tempt pious men into rape by showing an ankle (and those arrested for showing an ankle are frequently raped as punishment “for being sluts”) they actually do allow and even encourage education, even at university level.
The saudis also allow their daughters to be schooled, as shown a few years back when a girls school caught fire and the religious police wouldn’t allow the girls to escape the burning building because they weren’t sufficiently covered up.
All the teen girls died, btw.
But at least they died knowing how to read and write.
However, elsewhere under sharia law it’s commonly not allowed where sharia is the Law and when it’s not running the govt In Africa and the ME you still get reports of girls schools and school busses being targeted for bombings, kidnapping into sex slavery, rape, and murder because the savages believe that’s Allah’s will.
Probably gets free health care, free phone, debit card, free rent and dental too. Why would she ever want to leave?
Interesting she cannot do this important work in her homeland.
That’s the hypocrisy of The Academic Left.
It’s only in the “fascist dictatorship” of America that she can get a job at all, back in Iran she’d be remanded to the authority of a male relative or husband and unable to go out alone in public or attend a Uni, let alone teach at one.
In the WW II Death Camps they had a name for Jewish prisoners who helped their jailors – Kapos – but in the end they too like modern day Non-Muslims / Feminists / Gays / Jews For Palestine are all themselves on the lord High Executioner’s little list.
That is not true at all. Where do you get this crap? Know your enemy.
Iran is one of the more “liberal” Islamic countries with regard to women: Women can work in academia and become physicians, etc. However, they are still required to keep their heads covered and I believe they do not have equal property rights.
I’m sure this woman is one among MANY more here – hiding in plain sight under the cover of academia. It is surely a job in itself to flush them all out – such people are scattered all across academia, not just the Ivies.
You mean hiding under hijab.
“…suspended over her ties to terrorism…”
A muslim without terrorist ties is like a hotdog without a weinee.
“Iranian academic”
I think I found the problem right there….
My concern is that if we managed to get rid of their Muslim nutcase leaders, how many hopeless people like her will be left?
I can think of what she needs but can’t say it here. No diplomacy. Just a fast answer to her being a problem.
Oh go ahead and say it. Let yourself go. We’re all friends here. Most of us anyways.
Our government calls of termination with extreme prejudice. I’ll let it go with that.
Lead poisoning.
So remember boys and girls, don’t eat paint chips.
Locker her up with Bill Clinton for a month before deporting her.
Then she’d be like most owned Muslim women, or Hilary Clinton. If “daddy” don’t want you, why would anyone else.”
I was considering suggesting forcing her to have Joe Biden guest lecturer to her class for a full hour from paper notes, but then I decided that was punishing her students, not her.
I have no problem with that. What do you want to bet her students are already indoctrinated.
Looking at the $$$ fines imposed on Columbia and Penn, I think Yale’s main concern is they don’t want to be the third member of that select group of penalized Ivy institutions.
What’s a PhD in “Legal Studies”? How about a Biden patented midnight SWAT raid and immediate deportation? Before any activist judge intervened we could already be air dropping her over Tehran.
Putting “Studies” after something is like putting “Social” before something, or putting “Pasteurized Processed […] Food” before and after something.
How long before he is deported? More importantly, why is it taking so long?
Carter’s attempt to eject Iranian students was initially stopped at the district level. The D.C. Appeals court overturned the restraint, declaring “it is not the business of courts to pass judgment on the decisions of the President in the field of foreign policy.”
In other words, “stay in your lane.”
“..said that Yale was aware of her activism when she was hired, and she had been led to believe that her involvement was seen as an asset.”
I fully believe this. Yale is almost as anti-american as Columbia.
Islam is not a religion, it is a war plan.
I think there’s a difference between Muslims and Islamists.
“Fascist dictatorship” – anything that isn’t 7th Century barbarian
You will no longer be allowed to come here and impose your delusion on us.
Do you think she puts “I hate Americans and America” on her resume’ or does she stand and announce it during the interview at Yale?
Deport.
Doutaghi: “I will use everything and anything at my disposal to fight this fascist dictatorship of the United States.”
Everything and anything? Like — just throwing this out there — your ties to and relationship with a designated terror group that already views the U.S. as an enemy?
Typical Leftist. Protest the consequences of your actions by publicly demonstrating exactly why you deserve those consequences.
IOW, tell us why you need to be sanctioned and deported without telling us why you need to be sanctioned and deported.
““I will use everything and anything at my disposal to fight this fascist dictatorship of the United States.”
Unless she can provide solid evidence that that video was fabricated, or that the context of that statement exonerates her, she should be on the next flight home to Iran.
She can certainly fight all she wants from Iran. Go ahead.
If this chick were living in a real fascist dictatorship, she’d already be filling a hole out in the weeds.
People risk life, limb, spending every penny they have to illegally enter our fascist dictatorship. /eyeroll
This is why you should (mostly) ignore what people say and watch what they do: stated preferences vs. revealed preferences.
Review the public pronouncements of every Alien. When they violate the terms of their admission then revoke the privilege of remaining in the USA. Begin with Academia. Simultaneously review the flow of funds and expenditures of grant recipients especially Academia and NGOs to determine what, where and to whom the $ goes. Revoke future grant eligibility for those who misuse funds for subversive activities.
That flies directly in the face of the constitution. No person is ever admitted into the USA on terms that would prevent them from expressing any opinion while they are here. And the government may not take any action against a person in retaliation for their exercise of a constitutional right.
Samidoun is not a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, but it’s a Specially Designated National, which means it’s not illegal to give it material support, but it is barred from most financial transactions.
Aliens are guests granted a revocable privilege of entry into the USA. What’s true for a US Citizen isn’t necessarily true for an Alien.
Just as with the 2A the full enjoyment and protections of the 1A held by US Citizens are not held by Aliens. There is a distinction between various classes of people in the USA and they do not all enjoy the level of Constitutional freedoms.
Where an Alien proclaims they ‘…will.use anything and everything to fight the USA…’ that statement encompasses every possible means including violence. The same Alien is affiliated with a sham charity serving as terrorist financial front.
Like it or not the Executive has broad powers within both Nat Security and Foreign Policy. Some of them are non justiciable. Guests, which is what an Alien is, may be expelled from one’s home, those with Executive authority over a property may do same, just as the Executive Branch may do here.
You keep ignoring the point. It doesn’t matter that visas are revocable. They’re not revocable because of the person’s protected speech, because it is unconstitutional for the government to take any action in retaliation for exercising a constitutional right. The government can’t even withdraw a grant that it didn’t have to make in the first place, if the reason is that the grantee exercised a constitutional right; so it certainly can’t withdraw a visa for such a reason.
And no, there are no tiers when it comes to constitutional rights. The first amendment applies equally to all persons in the USA, as well as to US citizens and residents abroad.
The only basis for treating the second differently is that it says “the right of the people“, so one can argue that it doesn’t apply to those who are not members of “the people”. But if a court were ever to squarely address this it would probably find that at least permanent residents (i.e. green-card holders) are part of “the people” and thus protected.
Also, the same language is used for the fourth, and for the last two clauses of the first; and yet I don’t believe there is a court in the nation that would claim aliens have no right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, or that they have no right to assemble or petition the government.
The 1A isn’t the shield you seem to believe in respect to Aliens. There are all sorts of distinctions among various classes of people. A Citizen Service Member has their freedom massively curtailed in comparison to a Civilian Citizen as.just one example. Sure since ’73 it is a volunteer Military, so is seeking to enter the USA as an Alien and both come with restrictions.
Aliens are guests allowed revocable privilege to remain in the USA at our sufferance. Just like folks on parole or probation they have restrictions on their freedom that don’t apply to average Citizens.
You seem to want to plant your flag on a hill declaring that an Alien may say whatever they wish to whomever they wish, associate with whomever they wish, fund/raise funds for whatever cause/org they wish, volunteer their time/services to whomever/whatever org they wish. None of those are.true.
As for 2A v 1A ….when NY and CA limousine leftists and lefty groups like ACLU who seem so bent out shape about deporting Alien guests who endorse violence and attend funerals of terrorist leaders defend the 2A as fiercely I will take their arguments more seriously. Note this para does NOT apply to nor is it directed at you Milhouse.
I wonder if she noted this in whatever visa application she filled out?
Reason for coming to United States: “I will use everything and anything at my disposal to fight this fascist dictatorship of the United States.”
Trial bu Snu-Snu!
There was no “fascist dictatorship” when she came here, so why would she say she wanted to fight it? The “fascist dictatorship” started two months ago.
Deport this turd.
I think Marco Rubio might have something to say to her.
So tired of these obnoxious and subversive Islamofascists and Muslim supremacists being gifted cushy perches/sinecures at prestigious (or, formerly prestigious) universities, from which they feel entitled to brazenly spew their Jew-hate and anti-Israel/anti-U.S. venom.
She does not have a “cushy perch / sinecure”. Before her suspension she had a “short-term position as an associate research scholar with the LPE Project [that] expires next month”.
When she is deported the stewardess will greet her with “buh-bye.”
Shut up and go back to Iran to fight that oppressive “dictatorship”.
The solution to all these problems at the “institutions of higher learning” is to remove all federal funding. Then cancel all foreign student visas from islamic countries and deport with prejudice.
Harsh? Nope. Islam is at war with western civilization, the US just hasn’t figured it out yet. They have sworn to destroy or enslave all infidels(anyone who is not born islamic). Might wanna look at EU and the UK to see what is going on there. Just sayin’.
This woman seems to suffer from a variant of oikophobia. There are many
like her across the country, not just at the Ivies or in academe. And many are Americans, born and raised here. She exhibits all the symptoms of this affliction. As many here suggest, the only obvious treatment or cure is for her to return to her own home country.
As a foreigner, she can’t possibly be an oikophobe against America. By definition a person can only be oikophobic against their own country.
If she were against the Iranian mullahs one could accuse her of oikophobia, but it would be more reasonable to attribute it to being normal.