New chancellor at Kabul University bans women from campus

An Afghan girl sits in an empty classroom.

(Image credit: Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images)

published 28 September 2021

Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat, the new Taliban-appointed chancellor of Kabul University, tweeted on Monday that women are now prohibited from studying or teaching at the school.

"I give you my words as chancellor of Kabul University, as long as a real Islamic environment is not provided for all, women will not be allowed to come to universities or work," he said. "Islam first."

This is a reversal from earlier in the month, when the Taliban said Afghan women could stay enrolled at universities, as long as they wore burqas and were segregated from male students. However, it is in line with how the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when women and girls were barred from going to school and working and had to be accompanied by a male relative while out in public.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.