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communist society: There seemed to be a lack of incentive to really be efficient. Measur-
ing productivity at a glance, I assessed that things were pretty low-energy.
I couldn't help but think how tourism could boom here if they just opened up. There
were a few Western tourists (mostly Germans, French, Brits, and Dutch). All seemed to be
on a tour, with a private guide, or visiting relatives. Control gets tighter or looser depend-
ing on the political climate, but basically American tourists could visit only with a guided
tour. I met no one just exploring on their own. The Lonely Planet guidebook, which is ex-
cellent, dominated the scene—it seemed every Westerner in Iran had one. Tourists are so
rare, and major tourist sights are so few and obvious, that I bumped into the same travelers
day after day. Browsing through picture topics and calendars showing the same 15 or 20
images of the top sights in Iran, I was impressed by how our short trip would manage to
include most of them.
My travel sensibilities tingling from all these discoveries, I was excited to visit the
University of Tehran. There I hoped to find another side of Iran: highly educated and lib-
erated women and an environment of freedom. I assumed that in Iran, as in most societies,
the university would be where people run free…barefoot through the grass of life, leaping
over silly limits just because they can.
But instead, the University of Tehran—the country's oldest, biggest, and most pres-
tigious university—made BYU look like Berkeley. Subsidized by the government, the U.
of T. followed the theocracy's guidelines to a T: a strictly enforced dress code, no noncon-
formist posters, top-down direction for ways to play, segregated cafeterias…and students
toeing the line (in public, at least).
Hoping to interact with some students, I asked for a student union center (the lively
place where students come together as on Western campuses). But there was none. Each
faculty had a canteen where kids could hang out, with a sales counter separating two sec-
tions—one for boys and one for girls.
In the US, I see university professors as a bastion of free thinking, threatening in a
constructive way to people who enjoy the status quo. In Tehran, I found a situation where
the theocracy was clearly shaping the curriculum, faculty, and tenor of the campus. Con-
formity on any university campus saddens me. But seeing it in Iran—a society which so
needs some nonconformity—was the most disheartening experience of my entire trip.
My visit to the university jolted me back into the reality of traveling in a society where
morality is legislated—where a crime is a sin, and a sin is a crime. In their day-to-day lives,
the women of Iran are keenly aware of the impact of living in a theocracy. The days when
the Shah's men boasted that miniskirts were shorter in Tehran than they were in Paris are
