Yasin Gungor
02 April 2025•Update: 02 April 2025
ISTANBUL
An Iranian-born scholar on Tuesday accused the US of suppressing dissent after being dismissed for her criticism of Israel, calling it a normalization of "fascistic governance" at elite universities.
Helyeh Doutaghi was fired on Friday from Yale Law School (YLS) and the Law and Political Economy Project.
“Neither YLS nor any Zionist report (or both!) has presented a single shred of evidence demonstrating any unlawful connection or act on my part,” she said in a statement, warning that her dismissal could set a "chilling precedent.”
She argued that her termination reflects a broader trend of silencing voices critical of US and Israeli policies.
The scholar said what is taking place in the US at institutions like Yale, Cornell, Columbia, and Harvard is the "normalization of fascistic governance.”
Doutaghi accused universities of enforcing “institutional gag orders” and becoming “active collaborators in silencing dissent and criminalizing resistance.”
She also linked her firing to broader global political dynamics. “The legal technologies developed to manage and punish Global South actors who challenge Western oppression and domination are increasingly being redeployed inward,” she said.
In this shift, Doutaghi said the architecture of "capitalist imperialism" reveals its domestic face: "fascist authoritarianism, increasingly reliant on repression, surveillance, and the criminalization of resistance.”
"What we are witnessing unfold is not the failure of democracy – this is Western liberal democracy itself," she said presenting a stark choice between systems "fed on genocide" or the "liberation of Palestine."
Doutaghi’s removal from her post follows Education Department warnings to 60 universities about potential funding cuts over anti-semitism complaints.
The crackdown is part of an effort by the Trump administration to address allegations of anti-semitism on US campuses. The administration has linked funding reviews to protests over the Gaza Strip, where Israeli attacks since October 2023 have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians.
