Iranian hostage crisis protest,Washington D.C.,1979. Marion S.Trikosko/Wikicommons. Some rights reserved.Economic sanctions targeting Iran’s nuclear program are intervening increasingly in daily interactions between Iranian expatriates and their communities in countries across Europe, but most notably in the US. Singling out individuals for discrimination on the basis of ethnic identity seems to be an unfortunate consequence of exclusionary sanctions laws. In an ironic twist, this effect is seen in universities despite the importance traditionally placed on international exchange among students for the long-term goal of improved foreign relations.
A 2012 US federal law that denies visas to Iranian students intending to work in the field of energy in their home country garnered little media coverage when it was enacted. However, it was recently the alleged reason the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) issued an admissions ban on Iranian students in several engineering, computer science and chemistry-related fields. Despite the fact that UMass is committed to open access to education for all eligible applicants, the administration issued the ban following an incident where an Iranian student was unable to continue in the program because of being denied re-entry to the US.
Two Iranian student associations at UMass organized strong faculty support and drew national media attention to the policy, claiming it was “arbitrary and discriminatory”. Six days later, the Chancellor of UMass, Kumble Subbaswamy, issued an official apology, admitting that the ban represented “giant steps backward” given that the university had “never restricted admissions”. The UMass administration settled on a compromise, requiring individualized study plans for Iranian engineering students. Critics insist that this is not only discriminatory, but also unnecessary; international law expert, Dr. Reza Nasri argues that sanction laws clash with human rights law, enshrined in the constitutions of countries like the US.
