Universities are expected to defend academic freedom, social safety, and equal treatment. Yet many Iranians at TU Delft increasingly feel that these principles are applied selectively. Universities should be free to engage with global affairs and humanitarian concerns, but TU Delft has taken an inconsistent approach, commenting on Iran’s internal political developments while remaining far less vocal about major humanitarian crises involving mass suffering, even when universities, professors, and students were directly targeted.
This reflects a political logic in which Iran receives attention only when it fits a preferred narrative, placing Iranian students and researchers under unfair pressure and leaving them exposed, judged, and pushed to conform.
This selective logic is also visible in institutional responses. On some political developments related to Iran, deans and university leaders have circulated statements or emails with notable speed and clarity. Yet when Iran itself faces devastating violence, and when its universities and academic community are affected by it, the same urgency and moral clarity are far less visible.
Similar patterns have also appeared in the university’s responses to Palestine and Lebanon, where condemnation has at times been absent, delayed, or notably restrained. Such responses do not feel impartial; they feel evasive, as though some suffering matters less than others. The irony becomes even more striking when those responsible for the devastating recent wars in West Asia, including leaders accused of war crimes and violations of international law, are not held to account, even though those same wars have fueled tensions and protests across Dutch academia, while Iran continues to be singled out for condemnation.
For many Iranian members of the university, the problem does not end with institutional silence. It also extends to knowledge-security measures, nationality-linked security screening, and restrictions on access to certain areas of research and study, creating a broader sense of political exposure tied to nationality. These concerns become even more serious when doxing or other forms of public targeting enter the picture, or when academics and university-affiliated spaces tolerate overtly partisan behavior or expressions of support for violence.
‘Transparency is essential to ensure that choices are guided by principle, not by the desire to satisfy those in positions of power’
In such an environment, it is easy to understand why some members of the community may feel that expressing different views, particularly principled opposition to violence against Iran, carries social or professional risk. In such circumstances, the university must ensure that all members of the community can speak, disagree, and participate without fear.
That responsibility becomes even more urgent when one recalls that the recent war began with the loss of innocent lives, including more than 100 children at a school in Iran. In such a moment, the justification, celebration, or normalisation of war within the TU Delft community is morally indefensible.
Rather than speaking selectively about political developments in other countries, universities, including TU Delft, should adopt and publish clear policies setting out when they speak publicly, when they remain silent, and what principles guide those decisions and their broader institutional responsibilities. Such transparency is essential to ensure that these choices are guided by principle, not by the desire to satisfy those in positions of power.
The policies should also clarify the ethical safeguards that ensure the university’s research, collaborations, and technological work are not used, directly or indirectly, in ways that harm innocent people. They should make equally clear that the legitimisation of unlawful war and the normalisation of violence have no place within the university community, and that principled opposition to war is a legitimate and protected position for both students and staff. What is needed, therefore, is not selective concern, but clear standards, consistency, and genuine accountability.
We understand that TU Delft operates within political and institutional limits. But those constraints do not excuse unequal standards. Ethics and basic decency require that a country and a people who, under unjust pressure, continue to educate students and scholars who contribute to the Netherlands be treated with fairness, dignity, and respect, not selective political scrutiny.
If universities cannot act on the basis of consistent principles, they should avoid issuing politically selective statements or expressions of support. As the truth becomes clearer over time, future generations will judge not only what was said, but also what was selectively ignored and left unsaid.
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