Harvard, Yale remove employees amid pressure from Trump administration
The Harvard Crimson, the university's student-run newspaper,
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And
on Friday, Yale fired associate research scholar Helyeh Doutaghi after a months-long investigation into her connections to an organization involved with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the US lists as a terrorist organization.
These changes come
The Harvard and Yale dismissals also come as Trump cracks down on pro-Palestinian protesters, seeking to revoke hundreds of student visas. This week,
Harvard administrators plan to meet with the heads of centers in the coming weekend to 'ensure that diverse points of view are represented on campus as a necessary precondition for academic excellence,' according to a separate memo from earlier this week shared with the Globe.
Neither Harvard nor its Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which houses the center, responded to a request for comment on Saturday.
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Neither Kafadar, who's been on sabbatical this academic year, nor Bsheer immediately responded to requests for comment on Saturday.
When asked for their reaction to the Center for Middle Eastern Studies news throughout Saturday afternoon, Harvard students almost unanimously declined to comment. They said they aren't informed on the situation — and they're worried that they would say the wrong thing.
Yale Law said in a statement shared with the Globe that Doutaghi is listed as a member of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which the Biden administration last year declared a 'sham charity' that raises money for the PLFP.
Yale said investigators tried to meet with Doutaghi and her attorney, but they refused.
'To be clear, Yale does not take administrative action based on press reports and such an action is never initiated based on a person's protected speech,' wrote Yale Law spokesperson Alden Ferro. 'As a result of her refusal to cooperate with this investigation, Ms. Doutaghi's employment with Yale — which was already set to expire this April — has been terminated effective immediately."
Doutaghi could not immediately be reached for comment.
Earlier this month, as she remained under investigation, the National Lawyers Guild posted on her behalf, including a statement from her that the US is 'entering an era of Zionist McCarthyism' where dissent is met with a crackdown.
'Just as McCarthyism sought to crush anti-imperialist resistance through fear and repression, this new iteration aims to silence, intimidate, and purge those who challenge Zionist settler-colonialism and U.S. imperialism,' Doutaghi said in the statement.
Globe correspondent Talia Lissauer contributed to this report.
Sean Cotter can be reached at
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