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Scholars Under Threat News

Students rally to raise awareness of the plight of Afghan girls and women living under the Taliban outside Day Hall.
Mursal Rahim, center, at a student rally to raise awareness of the plight of Afghan girls and women living under the Taliban.

SUT Scholar is One of “The Last Free Women”

Book cover, The Last Free Women, shows two women's eyes close up.

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

Full listing

Hozoori is an IIE Scholar Rescue Fund fellow and visiting scholar in the Einaudi Center's South Asia Program. Read about his journey to Cornell and work on campus.

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Four dissident critics now living in exile in the United States will share their experiences at Dissidence: Exiled Writers on Resistance and Risk, a reading and reception on Friday, September 23.

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Nine Afghan undergraduates who fled their country after the Taliban took control in August 2021 have been admitted as Cornell students with full financial aid. Global Cornell has led a robust campus and community collaboration to bring the students to Cornell and support them as they adjust to campus life.

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A visiting critic in the Institute for European Studies, part of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Dmitry Bykov will be in residence for one to two years, engaging with Cornell faculty and students and completing several writing projects.

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The nine undergrads will be arriving on campus through December, thanks to robust international and cross-campus collaborations. Cornell has pledged support until they graduate.

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Visiting critic and award-winning political cartoonist Pedro X. Molina joined LACS this fall as a visiting critic and IIE-Artist Protection Fund fellow.

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Irene Sumbele, a medical parasitologist from war-torn Cameroon and visiting scientist with the Master of Public Health program at the College of Veterinary Medicine, has been named the 2020 Beau Biden Scholar by the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF).

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Turkish political scientist Simten Coşar has found the freedom to write and do scholarship at Cornell.

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Cornell sponsored Turkish academics Azat Gündoğan, a sociologist, and his wife, historian Nilay Ozok-Gündoğan, when they were threatened by their government.

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