Dear Drs. Shereef Elnahal, Nathan Selden, Bonnie Nagel, Marie Chisholm-Burns, and David Robinson,

Dr. Paula Sánchez Molina is a respected Postdoctoral Scholar at Oregon Health and Science University. She served as a leader in the Postdoc Society, was a founding member of our union, was a mentor to early career scientists, served on editorial boards for journals, and was a recipient of the BrightFocus Foundation Award. When she joined the Ajami lab in 2021, she was excited to work with Dr. Ajami and her colleagues on groundbreaking neuroimmunology research. However, she quickly observed Dr. Ajami lack of mentorship, patterns of bullying, contract violations, and discriminatory behavior directed at lab members.

In Spring of 2024, Paula saw Dr. Ajami accuse a colleague of deleting crucial research data from their own project and claim that their data was not trustworthy, just days after this colleague left the lab and reported her. Evidence showed that Dr. Ajami had actually deleted the files and then accused this colleague of it. Paula and her colleagues became more and more afraid of Dr. Ajami’s erratic and retaliatory behavior.

In December 2024, Paula’s doctor restricted her from work. While on medical leave, Paula was shocked to learn that Dr. Ajami was saying to lab members that she will not come back to work, removing her from the lab communication channels, transferring her research projects to others, and accusing her of deleting important files from her own research, as Dr. Ajami had done earlier in the year with Paula’s colleague. Because these files were so crucial to her work, Paula was forced to check her files, while on leave, and the database showed that Dr. Ajami had actually deleted the files she was accusing Paula of deleting. The repeated pattern of Dr. Ajami attempting to destroy the reputation of her lab members was clear.

Paula felt she had no choice at that point but to report Dr. Ajami’s bullying, discrimination, and retaliation. She reported through OHSU’s Integrity Helpline, which all OHSU employees are trained to do. As you probably know, the Integrity Helpline website says reports are confidential. That turned out not to be the case.

Immediately after Paula returned from medical leave OHSU allowed Dr. Ajami to suspend Paula from work on the basis of false accusations. OHSU at no point suspended Dr Ajami, and as far as we can tell there has been no fair or impartial investigation into her misconduct despite over 15 complaints from faculty, grads, postdocs, and staff. Our union has been forced to take many grievances to arbitration over OHSU’s mishandling of these complaints, and is currently in that process.

We have now learned that not only did OHSU fail to fairly and impartially investigate Dr. Ajami or discipline her in any way for this pattern of retaliation, OHSU also gave Dr. Ajami Paula’s “confidential” Integrity Helpline reports regarding Dr. Ajami’s misconduct, contributing to the retaliation.

On April 24, 2025, OHSU facilitated Dr. Ajami terminating Paula’s employment. At that point OHSU let Paula know that they would close any investigation into Dr. Ajami’s discrimination and retaliation against her. As far as we know, they ignored not only her reports, but the reports of her colleagues in the Ajami lab. The termination included clearly false and unsupported allegations without giving Paula or the union any chance to refute them, and OHSU failed to fulfill their obligation to provide relevant information for this investigation— including written evidence we have seen in which Dr. Ajami confessed that she was actually terminating Paula for reporting her.

Paula has worked as first author on a manuscript based on her groundbreaking research for three years. After her termination, Dr. Ajami submitted the revised manuscript for a 3rd round of peer review to the journal with Paula removed from her first authorship position without informing her. OHSU has claimed there was little to nothing it could do to prevent Dr. Ajami from submitting the manuscript without Paula maintaining her first authorship. Removing Paula’s first authorship without significant revisions that change Paula’s scientific contributions to the manuscript suggests that this decision by Dr. Ajami was retaliatory.

After Paula received notice of termination, her visa ended, and she was forced to leave the country immediately without knowing when she would be able to return. OHSU stripped her of her work, her reputation, and her home.

Our union is seeking arbitration over the handling of OHSU’s investigation and unjust termination of Paula. We intend to present evidence of Dr. Ajami’s long, documented history of misconduct at OHSU, and the actions against Paula demonstrate a pattern. Our union has clear, direct evidence that Dr. Ajami has committed several of these types of sabotage to at least one other research staff and graduate student. It is our belief that Dr. Ajami keeps repeating these atrocious behaviors because OHSU and the MMI department is supporting her and facilitating her retaliation against people working for her.

Paula raised these concerns to OHSU’s self-proclaimed fair investigatory departments and was fired – this is textbook retaliation and we will not tolerate that. We seek justice for Paula and demand the following:
(1) OHSU must provide a safe environment for all, including vulnerable early career scientists (grads, postdocs, and research staff);
(2) OHSU must expunge Paula’s record of the incorrect disciplinary action and false allegations;
(3) OHSU must instruct Dr. Ajami to reinstate Paula as first author of her submitted manuscript;
(4) OHSU must provide fair compensation to Paula for the harms it has caused her to her reputation, career, and livelihood;
(5) OHSU must provide all staff and faculty with a transparent description of its “confidential” reporting processes and institute a policy with clear discipline or sanctions for violation of confidentiality;
(6) OHSU must hold Dr. Ajami accountable for her misconduct by removing her from any supervisory role or terminating her employment so that she can no longer harm people working for her; and
(7) OHSU must discipline and retrain any staff who violated OHSU’s promise of confidentiality and take deliberate actions to protect whistleblowers.

We expect OHSU to meet our demands, provide a safe workplace for early career scientists and fairly uphold the code of conduct for all employees, even those in supervisory positions. Until OHSU addresses the systematic failures that lead to Paula’s unjust termination, OHSU is not a safe environment for research and discovery.

Sincerely,
The leadership of AFSCME local 723/Postdoc Workers United;
The leadership of AFSCME locals 402/Graduate Researcher United, 4820/House Officers Union, Research Workers United and Local 328;
The leadership of ONA/APU;
and the undersigned.