Helyeh Doutaghi had spent years building a name in international law. Respected. Admired. Deputy director of a prestigious project at Yale Law School, one of America's top law colleges that counts presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton among its alumni. A scholar at the pinnacle of academia.
Then, in a matter of days, it all fell apart.
An anonymous article — AI-generated, unverified, riddled with conjecture — appeared online. It accused her of ties to a US-designated terrorist organisation. No evidence, no human author, just an algorithm spitting out claims. Yet, that was enough. Yale Law School placed her on immediate administrative leave.
The website behind it, Jewish Onliner, credited no writers. It claimed Doutaghi was linked to Samidoun, a Palestinian prisoner support group. That was all it took.
Yale reacted — swiftly, decisively, without due process.
"The nation's 'top law school' didn't even question the source," Doutaghi wrote on social media. "Now, I'm facing harassment, death threats, and professional exile because a machine fabricated a scandal."
"I was given only a few hours' notice by the administration to attend an interrogation based on far-right AI-generated allegations against me, while enduring a flood of online harassment, death threats, and abuse by Zionist trolls, exacerbating ongoing unprecedented distress and complications both at work and at home.
"I endured all of this while fasting, and my request for religious accommodations during Ramadan was dismissed. Just a few hours later, YLS placed me on leave, revoked my IT access — including email — and banned me from campus. I was afforded no due process and no reasonable time to consult with my attorney," Doutaghi said.
Her attorney, Eric Lee, was blunt.
"This is political pressure, plain and simple. Yale caved to an effort to suppress free speech, crush academic freedom, and establish a dictatorship."
Yale's official response? A bland, corporate statement: "In response to allegations about potential unlawful conduct, the appropriate process is to place an employee on temporary administrative leave while a review is conducted."
Critics called it tech-fuelled McCarthyism.
AI-driven smears, real-world consequences
Jewish Onliner, the website in question, is deliberately vague about its modus operandi.
It boasts of "AI capabilities" but reveals nothing about its sources. It doesn't list any authors. When the New York Times tried to get in touch with the site to elicit a response, it was met with an AI assistant/bot.
The accusation? Doutaghi had attended events hosted by Samidoun, a group the US Treasury Department sanctioned last year for alleged fundraising ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
"This is absolutely abhorrent," noted author Maura Finkelstein said. She called Yale's decision a "racist Zionist attack" on a principled scholar.
The implications of the case are chilling. Experts say AI-driven disinformation no longer needs trolls or propaganda networks but a receptive institution willing to act on its claims. In this case, Yale did exactly that.
Doutaghi, however, isn't backing down. She has retained legal counsel and is challenging the university's decision.
"I am being attacked by Zionists — from across the world right now. I expected more meaningful support from Yale because I was their Deputy Director. They failed to provide that," Doutaghi told Drop Site.
