This coming academic year, Iranian women will be barred from enrolling in 77 BA and BSc courses at 36 universities.
The policy follows years in which Iranian women have outperformed men at universities, a trend that is said to have arisen after the 1979 Islamic revolution convinced more families to send their daughters to college. As a result, Iran has the highest ratio of women to men undergraduate students in the world, according to a UNESCO report.
The sharp increase in female university students over the years counters the male-dominated society idealized by Iran’s theocratic regime. Many suspect that the government’s endorsement of the anti-female policy stems directly from their desire to curb women’s power in Iranian society.
Some institutions, like the Oil Industry University, have gone so far as to ban women from enrolling, meaning that female students will no longer be able to pursue their studies.
Iranian lawyer and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi has written a letter to UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon demanding that the UN conduct an investigation. The letter accuses the Iranian government of seeking to weaken the role of women in the country.
“[It] is part of the recent policy of the Islamic Republic, which tries to return women to the private domain inside the home as it cannot tolerate their passionate presence in the public arena,” says the letter. “The aim is that women will give up their opposition and demands for their own rights.”
Iranian politicians have also demanded explanations. The science and higher education minister, Kamran Daneshjoo, has responded by saying that 90% of the country’s university degrees are still open to both genders, and that a “balance” in the education system needed to be created. Â