Thirty Years of Purging Dissident Academics

In 1980, a Persian New Year’s message by Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the newly victorious Iranian revolution, marked the start of a new chapter of state control over Iran’s universities. Every word of the message promoted the vision that the country’s newly-empowered revolutionaries had for the universities: “There will be a major revolution in all universities across Iran, purging academics who have ties to the West and East[1], and making the university a place for science and for teaching advanced Islamic studies.”

This message heralded the establishment of the Cultural Revolution Committee (later renamed the Cultural Revolution Supreme Council). During the two years that the universities were closed, the committee paved the way for the expulsion of hundreds of professors and thousands of students—dissidents, leftists, liberals, and Baha’is.

The revolutionaries had learned well that the country’s universities could be breeding grounds for opposition forces, often having the greatest influence in shaping the next generation. In clearing the field of strong opponents, the regime tried to alter the rules of the game.

For several years following the Ayatollah’s speech, the country’s universities were fully dominated by Iran’s rulers. But though the authorities achieved their short-term goals, it was plainly visible that after 25 years anti-government forces had gradually regenerated within the universities and were growing stronger by the day. Hardliners had taken over the executive branch and had contrived to defeat the reformist parliament in the next elections, but academia was another arena altogether.

The quickest solution for the hardliners was a softer version of their fondly-recalled Cultural Revolution.[2] During Ahmadinejad’s first year as president, orders were issued for the expulsion and “forced retirement” of nearly 70 professors at Tehran University alone. The same fate befell 53 professors at the Science and Industry University, and dozens more at other institutions. Meanwhile, many other distinguished professors chose to leave the country rather than continue working in such conditions[3].

All of the dissident academics had been popular among their students. As a result, after their expulsion orders were issued, protests were organized in various campuses across the country; in some, clashes occurred between students and anti-riot police, and three students were injured. In response, the government and Science Ministry simply referenced retirement laws.

This trend continued until suddenly, with the approach of the presidential elections June 2009, the same science minister who had championed professors’ “early retirement” said, “All requests for retired professors to return to work have been approved. I don’t recall the exact number of retired professors, but the universities have ten hours to decide on their retired faculty members’ return. We’ve responded in the affirmative to every university that has made this request.”

The rationale? President Ahmadinejad reckoned that by issuing an order inviting the dismissed professors to return to work, he would secure students’ votes at the polls.

However, Ahmadinejad’s drive for re-election made little headway—with the academic community or the general public—and the end of spring 1388 (2009) marked the start of a new era. In the wake of an election coup that declared Ahmadinejad the winner of the presidential race, a steady stream of popular protests regularly flooded the streets of Tehran and other cities.

Throughout that time, both the protestors and the government had an eye on the start of the academic year and the reopening of the universities, which constituted a massive base for both camps.  

Into this growing tension stepped Ayatollah Khamenei, the country’s Supreme Leader. Two months before the universities reopened, he publicly denounced the teaching of many subjects in the humanities as “promoting doubt in the tenets of religion and faith.” Referring to the two million students majoring in the humanities, Khamenei added, “This is an issue of concern, because the capacity of universities and research centers for fieldwork and Islamic research, as well as the number of professors who believe in the Islamic worldview, is not sufficient for this number of students in the humanities.”

Next, Ahmadinejad named Kamran Daneshjou his science minister. Daneshjou, one of the president’s trusted cohorts and the former head of the elections committee at the Interior Ministry, was viewed as having played a large role in Iran’s election fraud.

A new wave of academics’ expulsions, particularly those in the humanities, began. In a single day, the dean of Allameh University expelled—or “retired”—twelve professors from the economics department, dissolving the entire faculty in charge of teaching development. Several professors from the law and political science departments were also asked to leave.

Three professors from Tabriz University, at least five from Azad University, and several others from universities in Mashhad, Ahvaz and other cities were dismissed under similar conditions. This trend of purges did not leave even Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister and a recently defeated presidential candidate, unscathed. After the elections and the start of street protests, Mousavi was barred from teaching at the university at which he worked.

The same thing happened to Alireza Beheshti, Mousavi’s senior advisor. In fact, a number of professors who had actively campaigned for Mousavi were arrested and imprisoned, including Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, Ali Arabmazar, Farshad Momeni, and Mohsen Mirdamadi.

Expulsion, however, is not the only tool that the regime has used to pressure and repress academics in recent years. The paranoid and security-oriented climate pervading most university campuses has also created problems for professors. For example, the ninth administration’s Ministry of Science issued an order mandating that professors coordinate with university security services before they travel abroad. The order included “all types of travel, even vacations, pilgrimages, personal trips, and work-related trips funded by organizations other than the university.” For many academics, these restrictions have also proved to be severely limiting.

The following statement by Kamran Daneshjou, science minister, sums up the thinking behind these many years of state pressure on academics:

“The majority of the country’s academics move in line with the path of the revolution and anyone who fails to move in this direction, frankly speaking, must leave. I say openly and clearly, that the people we need in our universities must have a practical commitment to Islam and the supreme leader. Our universities need professors who love their students wholeheartedly, and these professors must build their faculties so that the Islamic Republic of Iran will endure successfully. The deans of the universities do not have the right to hire anyone who does not move in line with practical commitment to Islam, the Supreme Leader, and the constitution, and the Science Ministry will not compromise with any such group and will confront those who promote Western culture and monarchism at the universities.”

SOURCES:

Sarmayeh daily, 3/13/88

Radio Zamaneh, 30/10/99

Radio Farda, 6/12/88

Farsi Wikipedia: entry: Iran’s Cultural Revolution