Mehrdad Mohammadi, a journalist, said about the simultaneous protest of 44 professors of Sharif University against disciplinary rulings that there is essentially no structural gap between the official structures of universities and the repressive institutions of the Islamic Republic. This is because, from the appointment of university presidents and the hiring of faculty members to the presence of representatives of the Supreme Leader’s office and the Basij, different parts of the university are under the government’s influence and supervision.

He added that despite decades of control and engineering the structure of universities, the Islamic Republic has not been able to rein in the student body and considers students who have supported the national uprising a serious threat to the government.