Hadi PartoviVerified account

Ullman refers to the Iranian people as “Islamic terrorists in general”. For 15 years he published his "Answers to All Questions Iranian". He recently deleted it when he learned he was winning an award, but the Internet remembers: https://web.archive.org/web/20061030080448/http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/pub/iranian.html …

He also dismisses the historic plight of Native Americans as “the way things happen.” And he describes policies to support BiPOC as "theft." But beyond his words, when it comes to Iranians, he has a long history of refusing support to Iranian students.

As an Iranian myself, I was lucky to be admitted to study in the USA as a legal immigrant whose family escaped the Iran/Iraq war in 1984.

I worked hard and had the opportunity to help build companies that employed thousands of Americans. My latest startup, @codeorg, has introduced hundreds of millions of children to computer science, globally.

If Professor Jeffrey Ullman had a say in my life story, I would still be stuck in Iran. Ullman’s own words: “I will not help Iranian students.” He claims this is “a matter of principle.”

What's most ironic is this professor explains his bigotry as a defense of American “values”. The most important American value is written in our Declaration of Independence: that we are all created equal.

I am happy that American universities protect their professors’ right to free speech.

But freedom of speech doesn’t mean we should reward bigotry with the most prestigious award in computer science.

At @codeorg, it is core to our mission and values that every student should have the opportunity to study CS. A student should not be denied opportunity based on where they were born.