Statement of the UNM Faculty in support of the Iranian university community
University of New Mexico
Faculty Senate
November 29, 2022
Faculty Senate Endorsement
As a body wholly committed to the principles of Academic Freedom and an unflagging champion of Human and Civil Rights, the University of New Mexico’s Faculty Senate Hereby Officially Endorses the following statement of support for Academic Communities in Iran and Iranian Students at UNM:
“Woman, Life, Freedom”
Statement of the UNM Faculty in support of the Iranian university community
As faculty members of the University of New Mexico, we hereby express our support for the university community in Iran and for Iranian students at UNM as they defend human rights and educational integrity under the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom.”
Background:
Since September 16, 2022 following the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish girl, at the hands of
the “morality police,” Iranians have risen up in an inclusive social movement against the harsh religious
government's four decades of entrenched social, cultural, political, and economic tyranny. As a result,
security forces have imprisoned thousands of Iranians and killed hundreds of them.
In keeping with the contemporary history of resistance in Iran, Iranian university students are at the vanguard of this uprising. Their peaceful demonstrations are becoming the subject of the religious state’s merciless retribution. Consequently, scores of students and teachers have been killed and imprisoned. The academic traditions of intellectualism, freedom of speech, and freedom of inquiry are being obliterated and higher education thus systematically undermined.
In support of their peers back home, UNM’s undergraduate and graduate students from Iran have staged multiple public demonstrations. Along with the Iranian professors at UNM, they daily await—amid worry and dread—word of the fate of their loved ones, friends, and colleagues.
As faculty members of the University of New Mexico, we stand publicly in solidarity with students, teachers, and faculty members in Iran in their remarkable struggle for freedom, justice, women’s and human rights, and the future of higher education. We also hereby express our support for the students, staff, and faculty at UNM working in solidarity with the struggle in Iran, and for the Iranian community here in Albuquerque concerned for loved ones in Iran.
