CounterCurrent: Week of 03/02/2026
The American bombing of Iran and killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has dominated headlines this week—and for good reason. While Americans speculate about what will happen to the price of fuel, what the strike means for our national security, and how this will affect foreign relationships, we wonder what American higher education will make of war with Iran.
Ian Oxnevad, the Senior Fellow for Foreign Affairs and Security Studies at NAS, recently made the bold assertion in an article at Minding the Campus that American foreign policy today requires the Middle East to thwart Euroasian hegemony in the form of China. He also pondered how universities would respond to a post-Ayatollah Iran, writing at a time when military action was still only a threat.
Oxnevad’s publication was apparently ahead of its time.
In his article, Oxnevad points to the historical significance of the American-backed (but Iranian-led) coup that overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and the subsequent rise of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, contrasting it with modern-day support for Tehran on campuses. Iran was part of the Nixon Doctrine's “Twin Pillar” strategy to ward against Communism in the Middle East. The “Shah was surprisingly liberal, though anti-Shah protesters in the 1970s were unwilling to grant the monarchy any credit,” said Oxevad. Even on American college and university campuses, revolution-minded students protested against the Shah. Specifically, protests led by the Iranian Student Association were heralded by shouts of “Shah is a US Puppet,” “Down with the Shah,” and “Shah is a fascist butcher!,” and more.
Iran underwent a significant transformation under the Shah. Women gained the right to vote and hold public office under the “White Revolution” in 1963. Illiteracy rates were nearly cut in half. The Family Protection Laws of 1967 and 1975 legalized divorce for women and raised the minimum marriage age to 18, among other broad reforms to modernize the country. So why were American college students protesting the Shah's monarchy? Oxnevad explains,
By left-wing metrics, these are hardly the actions of an imperialist puppet regime. Yet many young American intellectuals ignored them entirely, condemning the Shah not for what he did, but for what he represented: Iran’s alignment with Western civilization—and their own hostility toward it.
“Revolutionary zeal often breeds moral confidence while dulling moral judgment and intellectual rigor,” Oxnevad aptly notes. Not much has changed today, it seems.
For example, in January, Yale University hosted Trita Parsi, the founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and Vice President of the Quincy Institute. NIAC lobbied for sanctions relief for Tehran and worked to undermine support for Israel, all while working alongside the ANSWER Coalition, backed by pro-Beijing millionaire Neville Singham, to fuel protests against the Trump administration’s “Operation Midnight Hammer” last year. These protests were also supported by the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Democratic Socialists of America. Oxnevad points out that “This ideological mix is the same that opposed the Shah and hates the West in principle.”
American higher education is no stranger to foreign influence. Over the years, academia has strengthened ties with foreign nations—even those hostile to America and the West—through gifts and funding. College students, along with professors at times, have taken up protesting on behalf of foreign entities antithetical to the West, in the name of “justice” or ideologically driven systems of thought. (Case in point: the events of the October 7, 2023 attack by Iran-backed Hamas on Israel and the ensuing proliferation of Jew-hate and anti-Israeli protests on many college and university campuses, many backed by left-leaning student groups and organizations).
So how will universities respond to the post-Ayatollah Iran? What fuels a campus response—how administrators, professors, and students react—to a matter of foreign affairs?
To the first question, the coming days will reveal whether Oxnevad’s prediction that a new pro-Western government in Iran “would be no less hated than the old one.” Over the weekend, there were protests against the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s leadership and military infrastructure, with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters joining in the chants of “Hands off Iran now.”
Like higher education institutions themselves, student groups, organizations, and area/ethnic studies centers are not immune to foreign sway. In 2024, NAS Research Fellow Mason Goad traced in the report Instagram the Intifada how SJP groups coordinated among themselves and other anti-Western organizations to organize protests and disrupt classes in the wake of October 7. Now, SJP chapters are publishing celebratory posts when Iranian missiles hit American military bases and joining the protesting fray.
To the second question, foreign funding carries significant influence on college and university campuses. Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires schools to disclose foreign gifts and contracts totaling over $250,000 in a given calendar year—a threshold that colleges and universities have routinely underreported, with little to no consequence. The sources of that funding matter: Qatar, China, and Russia are known contributors, and their money rarely comes without strings attached. In a recent analysis, Ian Oxnevad and Lilla Nora Kiss examine how the federal government's foreign funding tracker, while a useful first step, fails to capture how that money is actually used, who ultimately controls it, or whether it supports sensitive research—gaps that leave real national security risks hidden behind paperwork. Those strings have bearing on how institutions behave, how administrators make decisions, how professors teach, and what students are encouraged to believe. NAS has conducted extensive research to trace how these funds move through our campuses, identify missing disclosures, and expose nefarious actions by foreign nationals operating within our universities. The Department of Education has now published the remaining 2025 foreign funding data, and a deeper analysis is warranted—one we will return to in the coming weeks.
This renewed source of activism will strain universities’ neutrality pledges. Many campus voices are already clamoring for their institutions to speak out. Ideally, faculty and administrators will use this opportunity to instruct their students on civil disagreement. There are just as many reasons for war as those in opposition. A vibrant education should allow for such discussions to occur without major disruptions to instruction and campus life. We hope that the “revolutionary zeal” that Oxnevad observes will not dull the judgment of higher education once more. Let us celebrate the universities that have learned valuable lessons since 2023.
Until next week.
CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, written by the NAS Staff. To subscribe, update your email preferences here.
Photo by Julen Rey Azcona on Unsplash
