The Controversies Surrounding the Dismissal of 'Protesting' Professors; From Allegations of 'Ethical Issues' to Encouragement for 'Greater Firmness'

As the wave of dismissals of 'opposing and critical' professors of the Islamic Republic continues, the media outlet of the Islamic Republic Broadcasting (IRIB) described the university as a place for producing 'opposition' and emphasized the continuation of 'purges'. The president of Tehran University claimed that the termination of cooperation with professors was due to 'ethical issues' rather than political matters. According to ILNA, Mohammad Moeini, the president of Tehran University, who faced severe public criticism two months ago for holding a meeting with members of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) and expressing readiness to accept their students at the university, stated regarding the dismissal of professors: 'I am fully aware that the continuation of cooperation with some of these individuals has been prevented due to ethical issues and having complainants, but in the media, it is claimed that their termination is due to political issues.' He added, without providing evidence for his claim regarding 'termination of cooperation with professors due to ethical issues': 'Every now and then we hear that the issue of dismissing some professors at Tehran University is raised, which is not true at all, and at least during my two-year management at Tehran University, we have not had a single case of professor dismissal.' This claim by Moeini comes at a time when the recent dismissal of seven professors from the Faculty of Literature at Tehran University, including Daryoush Rahmanian, an associate professor in the history department, has faced severe criticism from students. Simultaneously, the Jam-e Jam newspaper, the media outlet of IRIB, referred to the university as a 'platform for training opposition' and urged the government to expel 'deviant' professors with greater firmness. The newspaper wrote: 'Over the past decades, the university has practically become a platform for training a generation of opposition inside and has also trained specialized forces for the capitalist movement outside the borders, while for a long time, those concerned about the country have warned that the continuation of the current situation in the university will only lead to an increase in the gap in revolutionary values. The widespread statistics of student and graduate migration also confirm this and show that the university institution in Iran serves the needs of Western countries and not the issues of Iran.' The Jam-e Jam newspaper further urged the government to continue its path with greater firmness, given this 'reality', and not to allow the presence of 'a few specific figures in universities' to divert students towards the party and factional issues of a specific current. The Etemad newspaper, published in Tehran, reported on Friday, September 9, about the dismissal of dozens of professors from universities in recent days and about three weeks before the start of the academic year, stating that the exact number of those dismissed is still unknown. This newspaper referred to these dismissals as a policy of 'homogenizing the higher education body'. According to reports, Mohsen Barahani, Daryoush Rahmanian, Azin Mohadd, Hossein Alayi, Ali Sharifi-Zarchi, Ameneh Ali, Hamideh Khademi, Reza Salehi-Amiri, Roham Afghani-Khorasani, Mohammad-Reza Nazari-Nejad, Vahid Eidgah, Leili Varahram, Javad Bashari, Ghasem Azizi, Milad Azimi, Hossein Mesbahian, and Mehdi Khoyi are among the professors who have received verbal or written preliminary rulings prohibiting them from teaching or suspending them from teaching. Etemad, in its report, referred to what it called 'bitter days' for more than 150 universities in Iran, adding: 'Homogenizing the higher education body is a project that is being pursued seriously in the thirteenth government, and this cabinet, unlike its counterparts in the ninth and tenth governments, has no intention of a ceasefire.' The claim of the president of Tehran University regarding the reason for the dismissal of professors; pressure on educators continues. A faculty member at Hakim Sabzevari University: I was dismissed without any explanation. Protests from teachers' unions against the dismissal of union activists and professors; 'Cancel all unjust rulings'. Contradictions in the statements of Ministry of Science officials: from the claim of 'the dismissed professor's participation in riots' to the dismissed professors 'did not complain'. The policy of 'homogenizing the higher education body' in the Islamic Republic; 157 professors have been removed in the past 18 years. Intensification of the security atmosphere against teachers; at least 80 teachers have been deprived of the ranking law.