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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.
Dr. Doutaghi (left) at the Palestinian Liberation Conference organized by Samidoun offshoot Masar Badil in Ottowa, April 2023 (source: medium.com)
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.
Dr. Doutaghi featured in a Samidoun webinar in April 2024, titled "Palestine & Iran: Changing the Global Balance of Power" (source: X, @SamidounPP).
Helyeh Doutaghi: "Nothing about what I've done, Yale didn't know or... or they should've known.
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"I will use everything and anything in my disposal to fight this fascist dictatorship of the United States.
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"It's important to recognize Israel not... Obviously not as a state or even anything close to it, but very much as a political project by Western colonialist, imperialist forces that were put in our region. And so, what was significant about the past year and a half – two years, almost – is the incredible resistance of the Palestinians and of the Popular forces of [the] region, all across."
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Interviewer: "Had anyone from Yale, prior to this, ever mentioned Samidoun to you, or any organization, or given you any warning that, you know, 'We're concerned you might be involved with a sanctioned organization?'"
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Doutaghi: "I had said that I had been a long-time organizer in the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-colonialist movements, and the student movements, in Canada, where I was before. And I had been very loud and proud about what I've done and my activities. And there is no reason for them not to know about this. But no, they never raised any concerns. In fact, when I was being hired at DLP, I was led to believe that my politics, and my intellectual work, and my organizing work is really an asset to the team. And it turns out, it wasn't.
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"U.S., American institutions, especially these Ivy Leagues, you know, I was... especially these Ivy Leagues. They are not just being silenced, they are very much a mechanism and a tool in the hands of the fascist project that the U.S., under Trump, is unfolding.
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"It really is a clarifying moment for a lot of people to just realize how empty of any intellectual integrity these institutions are."
