MANY IRANIAN UNIVERSITIES BAR WOMEN FROM TAKING COURSES

This is an outrageous day for women's education in Iran.  Today, rules prohibiting women from taking over 80 courses take effect in many Iranian universities.

Prohibited classes include English literature and nuclear physics.

Fariba Sahraebi writes in today's BBC online:

"With the start of the new Iranian academic year, a raft of restrictions on courses open to female students has been introduced, raising questions about the rights of women to education in Iran - and the long-term impact such exclusions might have.

More than 30 universities have introduced new rules banning female students from almost 80 different degree courses.

These include a bewildering variety of subjects from engineering, nuclear physics and computer science, to English literature, archaeology and business."