UoPeople Providing 100 Scholarships to Iranian Women in Support of Women’s Rights Protests

PASADENA, CA (October 26, 2022) – To support the rights of Iranian women, including the freedom not to veil their faces in public, University of the People is providing 100 scholarships to Iranian women so they can continue their education online from the safety of their homes without being subjected to threats and possible imprisonment from the Iranian morality police.

Protests started spreading across Iran in September following the death of a Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, who had been arrested for not wearing her hijab correctly. In recent weeks, the anti-government protests exploded into the largest mass demonstrations Iran has seen for decades. A number of these protests have taken place at university campuses throughout the country.

“University of the People supports the rights of women around the globe, including their right to education and the freedom to dress how they choose,” said UoPeople President Shai Reshef.

“We are providing these scholarships to Iranian women so that they can continue their education safely online and become part of a global community of learners without any restrictions on what they wear.”

UoPeople is the first non-profit, tuition-free, American-accredited online university designed to provide affordable and accessible higher education opportunities to any qualified high school graduate and offers a number of high-demand bachelor’s and master’s degree programs. The university’s easily accessible and flexible online degree programs ensure that these students can study at any time, from anywhere, and at any pace. Students only need to have a basic internet connection to access the university’s courses, which means they can easily study from the safety of their homes.

UoPeople currently enrolls more than 126,000 students from over 200 countries. The university’s student body includes 16,500 refugees – more than any other university in the world. Currently, more than 2,000 Afghan women have received scholarships to UoPeople so they can study “underground” to avoid detection by the Taliban. In addition, the university has opened all its courses for free to Ukrainian students, and more than 500 Ukrainians are currently studying at UoPeople.

For more information about UoPeople or to apply for one of the scholarships for Iranian women, visit www.uopeople.edu.

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About University of the People

University of the People (UoPeople) is the Education Revolution. It is the first non-profit, tuition-free, American-accredited online university. Currently there are over 126,000 students from more than 200 countries and territories. Designed to open access to higher education globally, UoPeople helps qualified high school graduates overcome financial, geographic, political, and personal constraints keeping them from collegiate studies. The university offers associate and bachelor’s degree programs in business administration, computer science, and health science, as well as an MBA and M.Ed. program. Graduates of UoPeople can be found working at such companies as Deloitte, Amazon, Apple, Pfizer, Google, Microsoft and IBM. UoPeople collaborates with Harvard Business School Online, New York University, McGill University, and the University of Edinburgh and has been supported by foundations such as the Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation and Hewlett Foundation. Learn more at www.uopeople.edu.