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Iranian-American Group Calls on Stanford to Censure Professor

By  Josh Keller
January 5, 2011

An Iranian-American group has asked Stanford University to censure a professor for what it calls “racially discriminatory and inflammatory” comments to an Iranian student who was asking him about admission to Stanford.

The professor, Jeffrey D. Ullman, wrote in an e-mail to a student at Sharif University in Tehran that he could not help the student gain admission to Stanford. “And even if I were in a position to help, I will not help Iranian students until Iran recognizes and respects Israel as the land of the Jewish people,” Mr. Ullman wrote.

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An Iranian-American group has asked Stanford University to censure a professor for what it calls “racially discriminatory and inflammatory” comments to an Iranian student who was asking him about admission to Stanford.

The professor, Jeffrey D. Ullman, wrote in an e-mail to a student at Sharif University in Tehran that he could not help the student gain admission to Stanford. “And even if I were in a position to help, I will not help Iranian students until Iran recognizes and respects Israel as the land of the Jewish people,” Mr. Ullman wrote.

The e-mail continued, “If Iranians want the benefits of Stanford and other institutions in the U.S., they have to respect the values we hold in the U.S., including freedom of religion and respect for human rights.”

The group, the National Iranian American Council, cited the e-mail in a letter to Stanford’s president on Monday. In the letter, the group calls on the university to distance itself from the comments and take disciplinary action against the professor. It also objects to a document about Iran and Israel that Mr. Ullman has posted on his faculty Web site.

“Racial and political discrimination such as this surely cannot be compatible with Stanford University’s values,” wrote the group’s policy director, Jamal Abdi. “Does the university not frown on professors making and communicating arbitrary policy decisions reflecting their own politics—and using university-hosted forums to do so?”

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A Stanford spokeswoman said on Wednesday that Mr. Ullman has no involvement in the admissions process and that he does not represent Stanford. “He’s expressing his personal opinion and that’s his prerogative,” said the spokeswoman, Lisa Lapin. “We don’t have anything further to say about it.”

In an interview, Mr. Ullman acknowledged writing the e-mail but called the group’s claims “so freaking ridiculous.” He said he was expressing a political view about the actions of the Iranian government, and that Iranians need to know that “nobody’s going to treat them very kindly if the country behaves the way it does.”

He said he should have made it clearer in his e-mail that he was expressing his own view, not an official Stanford policy. “But it should be pretty obvious that I’m not a Stanford admissions officer,” he said.

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
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