Yale’s Betrayal

Academic Freedom under Siege

In 2002, when it was assumed I would stay on as faculty in Harvard Medical School’s Social Medicine and Global Health program, I made a radical decision. I would have headed a pioneering, coveted consulting group to the World Health Organization (WHO), in one of the most advanced global health departments in the country.

Instead, I returned to my alma mater, Yale University, because I missed its “integrity” (I was not the only one to feel this way—its endowment surpassed that of Harvard’s, as grateful alumni showered it with donations for not engaging in the kind of investment schemes that plagued Harvard, such as with Halliburton, later to become scandalous for its war crimes in Iraq). Making this choice meant that I would have to help erect a global health program from scratch and to establish my own consulting group for the WHO, which I finally achieved nine years later. I received compliments from the Yale president himself, who invited me to his Campus home to dine with Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

Not long afterward, threatened and pressured by the notorious Alan Dershowitz at a time when it appeared Donald Trump would be reelected in 2020, I was abruptly dismissed. I never saw it coming, and never even imagined it was possible. All my faculty and student ratings were among the highest, even exceptional: “the best course at Yale College”; “the highlight of my Law School career”; “the professor who inspired me the most”; etc.

Yet, what was so shocking to me then is nothing compared to what is happening now. Until a few days ago, Helyeh Doutaghi was deputy director of the Law and Political Economy Project and associate research scholar at Yale Law School. Then, apparently because of one of the many troll organizations Dershowitz gave birth to and legitimized, she was absurdly and wrongly accused. However, just as my technically keeping with “the Goldwater rule” when commenting on the serious, psychological dangers of a U.S. president did not matter—as long as the public could be led to believe I broke it—her technically being innocent did not matter—now, artificial intelligence-generated fake news saying she was a “terrorist” was enough.

In today’s escalating climate of fear and repression, a new, virulent strand of McCarthyism has taken hold, and Doutaghi was expediently removed from all her positions, disassociated from Yale, and banned from campus within hours.

I do not have any inside details of what happened, but I know enough to conclude that the way Yale handled Doutaghi’s case was an unconscionable, blatant betrayal. In my case, Yale was willing to disavow all obligations to academic freedom, simply to avoid a discovery process that was likely to expose how the government had infiltrated our universities.

In this case, it was willing to violate the very bedrock principles of what it means to be a university, as a model for the independent pursuit of knowledge, where students and professors like myself used to be proud to be associated. Not anymore!

I shall briefly quote from what Doutaghi herself has stated brilliantly, powerfully, and frighteningly truly:

This crackdown 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….

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.... This is a flagrant violation of the most basic constitutional rights, marking yet another step in the United States’ descent into lawless tyranny…..

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.

Regardless of Doutaghi’s actual viewpoints, the way Yale has treated her discredits my former institution in entirety. At this pivotal moment, the dean of the Law School and the president of the University should and must lead a united front, but they won’t—since they were chosen for their positions precisely for their complicity and taciturnity (I do not know the current president, but the Law School dean was highly criticized for her tolerance of sexual crimes against students, year after year—the professor is still there—while at the same time intolerant of anyone who would simply stand up for principles, as now).

An honorable University would, as a matter of course, provide Doutaghi a Law School forum where she along with others of the YLS community could properly and thoughtfully address all the issues involved. This is what I requested of the School of Medicine at my dismissal, but unsurprisingly it would not allow a single discussion.

This situation, like that of Khalil at Columbia, provides all of us with an unprecedented opportunity to stand up to decry and to condemn the new McCarthyism, itself a variant of the psycho-political pandemic now loose on the land, which I have termed, “Trump Contagion”:

Have you no sense of decency, Yale?

An additional interview by Doutaghi convinces me all the more that the wrong people are occupying university leadership positions:

Academic institutions are not places to invest and make profit on the death machine that the United States is running. It needs to be a place for free thought, free speech, and cultivating knowledge … that will help us build a society [where] humans are dignified and where we have true freedom to live—and we just don't have that. This is a fascist dictatorship we are living under. And intellectual institutions really do hold a lot of power in changing that—and they are failing to do so.

Announcement:

Dr. Bandy X. Lee is holding weekly live sessions on:

“A Curriculum on One World or None”

The next session will be this Friday, March 21, 2025, at 12 noon EDT/9 a.m. PDT on Zoom. A paid subscription is required to receive a link the morning before. Thank you!

Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist who became known to the public through her 2017 Yale conference and book that emphasized the importance of fit leadership. In 2019, she organized a major National Press Club Conference on the theme of, “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” In 2024, she followed up with another major Conference, “The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” She published another book on fit leadership (now privately expanded), in addition to a volume on how unfitness in a leader spreads and two critical statements on fit leadership. Dr. Lee warned that journalists and intellectuals are the first to be suppressed in times of unfit leadership, and it is happening here; she continues, however, to be interviewed or covered abroad, such as in France, Germany, Norway, Brazil, Argentina, and Canada (with articles in Turkish, Czech and Polish). Dr. Lee authored the internationally-acclaimed textbook, Violence; over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters; and 17 scholarly books and journal special issues, in addition to over 300 opinion editorials. She is currently developing a new curriculum of public education on “One World or None.”