Iraq’s ivory tower is under siege. Thousands of academics have fled the country, classes are frequently canceled, students often stay home and research has slowed to a standstill as sectarian militias increasingly target academia. Between 250 and 1,000 professors have been killed since the 2003 invasion, according to different estimates. Many more have received bullets through internal mail, had death threats tacked to their office doors, or received anonymous phone calls warning them not to come to work, often for showing a lack of zeal in the sectarian conflicts. “Professors are usually more secular than the general population, more open-minded, interested in things other than religious proselytizing,” says John Agresto, senior adviser to the Higher Education Ministry in Iraq from 2003 to 2004. “Their secular nature is what is getting them targeted.”
In addition to assassinating professors, insurgents have also started bombing university campuses, killing dozens of students and faculty members. And in their quest to secure sectarian enclaves, militias have made universities throughout the country unsafe for anyone of the “wrong” ethnic group. “Terrorism is targeting scholars in an almost unprecedented way,” says Allan E. Goodman, president of the Institute of International Education in New York. “It’s hard to say there even is a higher-education system in Iraq anymore.”
The situation is so grave that the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research now allows professors to go to campus just twice a week, and to transfer to other universities in the face of threats. More than 1,000 academics and 10,000 students chose that option this year. Many more students, especially women, have quit school, with some universities operating at 10 percent to 20 percent of capacity. “It is difficult to say that my colleagues are longing to go back to Saddam’s rule,” Jawad says. “But they are longing to go back to some sort of stability and security.”
The state of paralysis will do lasting damage. At least 30 percent of all professors, physicians, pharmacists and engineers in Iraq have fled since 2003, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration. Jawad says that more than 100 courses at Baghdad University have been canceled this semester for lack of instructors. At Al-Nahrain University, some departments have lost all their faculty members. Replacing so many seasoned professors is not possible in the short term, Jawad says. “How can you replace them with new graduates with no experience, with no training abroad, with no foreign languages?” he asks. “It will take at least 20 to 30 years to furnish universities with professors of this caliber again.”
