Opinion: An Iranian refugee's warning to American universities: "The Islamic Revolution did not start in mosques, but on campuses"

Dr. Sheila Nazarian, who fled Iran as a child, argues in a Fox News opinion piece that American universities must stop taking money from regimes that bankroll terror and stop tolerating campus radicalism that excused Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.

"I was 6 when my family fled through the desert under burlap sacks while Iranian border police fired at us," she writes. "I fled a country that abandoned education in favor of radicalization. The Islamic Revolution did not start in mosques, but on campuses."

Nazarian points to Education Department data showing foreign sources have sent $67.6 billion to American universities since 1986, with Qatar, which has hosted Hamas' leadership since 2012, the largest donor at $7.7 billion. She cites a JINSA report on how Qatar uses financial levers to influence American campuses.

She asks readers to imagine Harvard, which accepted $4.2 billion in foreign funds between 1986 and 2025, refusing money from countries that fund terrorist groups, or Columbia treating praise for terror "as harshly as cheating on an exam."

"The Shah's Iran had world-class universities too," she concludes. "I watched what happened when they stopped being about education. I will not watch it happen to the country that saved my life."

This is an opinion piece. The views are the author's.