Update: The University of Massachusetts at Amherst reversed its decision on Wednesday to ban Iranian nationals from admission to certain graduate programs in engineering and science.
Original Story: The University of Massachusetts has come under criticism for not allowing Iranian nationals from enrolling into certain engineering and science programs at the graduate school level, a decision announced by the school earlier this month.
Iranian students hoping to earn engineering degrees will not be able to apply to the university's Amherst campus programs beginning this month because of a U.S. law, which was passed in 2012 to prevent Iran from creating a nuclear weapon program, International Business Times reported. It bars Iranian citizens from getting visas to study in the U.S. if they plan to return to Iran and work in nuclear energy or related fields.
The graduate courses, covered by the policy, include Chemical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Microbiology and Polymer Science & Engineering.
"The exclusion of a class of students from admission directly conflicts with our institutional values and principles. However, we must adhere to the law and hence have instituted this policy to ensure that we are in compliance," the school said in a Feb. 6 statement.
However UMass is the only public university to implement the ban, which cites Washington sanctions on visas given to Iranians who want to enroll in specific graduate degrees. But according to the State Department, the U.S. government is supposed to enforce the law - not individual universities.
"U.S. law does not prohibit qualified Iranian nationals coming to the United States for education in science and engineering," an official said in a statement to the Boston Globe and NBC News. "Each application is reviewed on a case-by-case basis. We will reach out to UMass Amherst to discuss this specific decision."
Since the decision was announced, many students have expressed outrage over the exclusion.
"We always felt like an integral part of the university community," Shirin Hakim, a recent Iranian-American graduate, told NBC. "Now we're just kind of confused. We want an explanation for all this, and we don't think it should be tolerated, because it's clearly discriminatory against Iranian nationals."
"I guess it's within the realm of possibility that based on what the State Department says we may change our position in some way, but that remains to be seen," school spokesman Daniel Fitzgibbons said.
The Iranian Graduate Student Association and Persian Student Association in the university have opened a Facebook page to gather support, stating that the policy is arbitrary, discriminatory and should not be tolerated, according to New York Daily News.
"Coming to America as an Iranian is already difficult, and now UMass has made it much more intricate, with little explanation. UMass Amherst is voluntarily pushing us as a collective, because of what our home government does," the student groups said.
Although the university removed the policy on Friday morning after receiving strong backlash on social media, it reinstated the policy on the same afternoon.
Meanwhile, about 79 percent of Iranians in the U.S. enroll in natural science courses.
