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:
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.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY