Scholars Under Threat News
SUT Scholar is One of “The Last Free Women”
Mursal Rahim, MPA ’25, fled Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover and earned a Cornell degree supported by Global Cornell’s Scholars Under Threat initiative. The Last Free Women chronicles her journey, including her time at Cornell, her UN internship, and how she and three others have built new futures.
“This is the whiplash I live with now—highs of freedom and newfound opportunity, punctured by lows of intense guilt.”
The book was written by Rebecca Blumenstein, a former New York Times editor who helped coordinate employees’ evacuation and resettlement, and Diana Kapp, a journalist who has reported from Afghanistan.
Scholars and Students in the News
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Cartoonist Pedro X. Molina, currently a visiting critic in the Einaudi Center, challenges Nicaragua’s dictatorship with a daily cartoon. In 2023 he was honored with the Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent.
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After his family was forced to flee a government crackdown in Turkey, Florida State University sociologist Azat Gündoğan found a "lifeline" at Cornell as an International Institute of Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund fellow.
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Azat Gündoğan is a former IIE-Scholar Rescue Fellow who was hosted in the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. The resources and connections he built at Cornell helped him to land a job. Now, he is an assistant teaching professor in the University Honors Program at Florida State University.
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For its work supporting international scholars whose work puts them at risk in their home countries, Cornell has been awarded the Institute of International Education’s Centennial Medal, which celebrates the achievements and leadership of individuals and institutions that have made important contributions to international education.
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Politics, Art, and Free Expression featured Afghan artist Sharifa “Elja” Sharifi, Nicaraguan political cartoonist Pedro X. Molina, and Khadija Monis ’24 an Afghan student, poet, and artist. The panel was moderated by Rachel Beatty Riedl, director of the Einaudi Center.
Dr. Sharif Hozoori was awarded an IIE-SRF fellowship in August 2021 and joined Cornell University as a Visiting Scholar at the Einaudi Center's South Asia Program.
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An event featuring threatened artists from Nicaragua and Afghanistan kicks off Global Cornell’s contribution to this year’s campuswide theme, "The Indispensable Condition: Freedom of Expression at Cornell."
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"Afghanistan is a country of ethnic minorities. No one can claim to be part of a majority," said Sharif Hozoori at a September 21 event on "Ethnocentrism and Democracy Failure in Afghanistan."
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“If you block peaceful politics, then you make room for unpeaceful politics,” said a presenter at the Sept. 9 conference at Cornell.
