For years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been playing a long game on American soil. While the regime chants “Death to America” in the streets of Tehran, their ideological foot soldiers have been quietly embedding themselves in the ivory towers of our universities. But at the University of Arkansas, the mask hasn’t just slipped – it has been ripped off.
The case of Shirin Saeidi, the now-demoted Director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies, is not just a story of a professor with “fringe views.” It is a chilling case study in how the prestige of an American institution was weaponized to serve the interests of a foreign terror state.
The ultimate betrayal in this saga isn’t just Saeidi’s rhetoric; it’s her use of American resources to lobby for a monster. Reports from the Middle East Forum (MEF) and the Alliance Against Islamic Republic of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA) have exposed a calculated abuse of office: Saeidi allegedly used official University of Arkansas letterhead to advocate for the release of Hamid Nouri.
Who is Hamid Nouri? He is a man with the blood of thousands on his hands. In 2022, a Swedish court sentenced Nouri to life in prison for his role in the 1988 mass execution of political prisoners in Iran – a purge ordered by the “Butcher of Tehran” himself, Ebrahim Raisi. Yet, while the Iranian diaspora cheered for a rare moment of international justice, an American professor was reportedly using the University of Arkansas logo to demand his freedom.
When a professor uses university stationery, they aren’t speaking for themselves; they are projecting the authority of the State of Arkansas and the United States of America. Using that authority to provide cover for a convicted war criminal is more than a policy violation – it is a slap in the face to every Iranian-American who fled that regime and every American patriot who believes our schools should be bastions of liberty, not PR firms for the Ayatollah.
The rot goes deeper than a few letters. Saeidi’s entire academic career is now under the microscope. Cambridge University Press has launched an investigation into her 2022 book, Women and the Islamic Republic, following allegations of academic fraud that have been deemed devastating.
Nasrin Parvaz, a brave survivor of the regime’s torture cells, has come forward to reveal a shocking betrayal. Parvaz alleges that Saeidi included an “interview” with her in the book that was either fabricated or used without authorization. For a scholar to allegedly twist the testimony of a torture survivor to fit a pro-regime narrative isn’t just “poor research” – it is predatory. It is the academic equivalent of stolen valor, profiting off the suffering of those the regime couldn’t break, only to use their stories to bolster the regime’s image.
The most telling evidence of Saeidi’s true allegiances is the reaction from Tehran. The moment the University of Arkansas stripped Saeidi of her directorship, the Iranian state media apparatus went into a frenzy. The Tehran Times and the Iranian Judiciary have issued “official condemnations,” framing her demotion as an attack on “academic freedom.”
The irony is sickening. This is a regime that hangs students from cranes for protesting, that blinds women for showing their hair, and that has purged thousands of its own professors for failing to parrot the Supreme Leader’s propaganda. For the Iranian government to lecture America on “academic freedom” proves exactly what Saeidi was to them: a high-value asset in the heart of the American South.
Why was Saeidi allowed to hold the keys to the King Fahd Center for so long? For too long, American universities have hidden behind the shield of “academic freedom” to ignore blatant foreign influence. Patriots and the Iranian diaspora are done with the excuses. We recognize that there is a massive difference between “diverse viewpoints” and active collaboration with a regime that is designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism by the U.S. State Department.
The University of Arkansas has taken the first step by demoting her, but the job is half-finished. As long as she remains a tenured faculty member, she continues to draw a salary funded by taxpayers and tuition dollars – dollars that are effectively subsidizing a mouthpiece for the Ayatollah.
To the Iranian diaspora: Your voices exposed this. Your refusal to let the regime’s apologists speak for you is working. To American patriots: Our universities must be reclaimed. We cannot allow our institutions to be used as launching pads for foreign propaganda.
The “Letterhead Traitor” case must be the turning point. It is time for a full audit of Middle East Studies departments across the country. We must demand transparency in funding and accountability for any academic who uses their position to lobby for war criminals.
The University of Arkansas must finish what it started. Tenure is a privilege designed to protect truth-seekers, not to provide a permanent paycheck for those who carry water for a murderous theocracy.
It’s time to clean house.
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