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Iranian students at UMass hoping the university reverses position on not accepting Iranian nationals in certain programs.

(Diane Lederman/The Republican)

AMHERST — Students at the University of Massachusetts have created a Facebook page dedicated to the reversal of what they are saying is "the unjust implementation of a policy at UMass Amherst to ban Iranian National students."

With a hashtag #weareallumass, the students have issued a statement in response to the UMass decision to stop admitting Iranian national students to specific programs in the College of Engineering and College of Natural Sciences because of a law Congress enacted in 2012.

In the letter on the Facebook page, students posted:

UMass spokesman Edward F. Blaguszewski said Friday that it is not a UMass policy, but the university is and has been following federal law. It came up now because a student had a question and UMass wanted to put the policy in writing, he said.

He said there are currently 48 Iranian nationals at UMass in all kinds of programs.

Michael F. Malone, vice chancellor for research and engagement at UMass, said Friday that UMass officials didn't want to put the policy in place. He said an Iranian student went back to Iran and was unable to get back to the United States because the student's research project was in one of the fields banned from study. He said sometimes students don't decide until after they get to the university here what they want to study, and that initial field of study might have been allowed.

If a student who started work here can't get back, it stalls whatever project they were working on with faculty members and others, and hurts funding.

He said other institutions might not have this policy written in this way. "We wanted to be transparent about what we're doing. We don't want them to come here and be disappointed," Malone said.

He said he hopes that the laws will change. "We would be eager to change (if the circumstances changed)," he said. He said UMass consulted with legal counsel and other institutions before enacting the policy. "We believe we're in the mainstream," he said.

The only other university with a similar interpretation is Virginia Commonwealth University, according to Jamal Abdi, National Iranian Council Policy Director.

Abdi has sent a letter, meanwhile, to John J. McCarthy, office of the Graduate Dean, urging the university to " immediately reverse this harmful, discriminatory, and unnecessary action." (the letter is embedded at the end of this article)

Abdi wrote:

Nearly 2,400 have liked the page since it was created this weekend.

Umass Letter