I know two professors at the University of Tehran, and one at the Islamic Azad University. One teaches American Studies with Professor Mohammad Marandi, who everyone should know from alt media. The other is my uncle, who is a retired Professor Emeritus. The one who teaches at Islamic Azad University is a female literature professor who was my dad's roommate when she was doing research on Deleuze and Shakespeare at Harvard.
In my conversations with them, I've come to realize that Iranian academics have far more academic freedom than academics in the west. First, there's no "cancel culture" or "safe spaces". My friend who teaches American studies said students would openly ask questions about "black crime stats" that would result in disciplinary action in an American university. (And it's not because they're actually racist, it's more just how their perceptions of American society are shaped by pop culture and the mainstream media.)
There's the opposite of a Zionist lobby in Iran, so academics have unlimited freedom to critique Israel and the global Israeli lobby. My own uncle is familiar with the concept of the "ZOG" and NOI's The Secret Relationship. These texts can be openly discussed in Iranian classrooms. This isn't an endorsement of Holocaust denial or actual examples of antisemitism, it just goes to show that there are no concepts or ideas that are off limits.
Alexander Reid-Ross once wrote an article sperging out about an Iranian academic conference that he called "The anti-Semitism Fest Where Russian Spies, Code Pink, David Duke and the Nation of Islam Make Friends and Influence People". In the article he says, "At how many conferences can you be guaranteed to meet Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Russian imperialists, anti-Ukrainian fascists, Chinese spies, Qaddafi devotees, Corbyn fans, Assad apologists, neo-Nazis, Trump devotees, French Holocaust deniers, Western anti-war feminists, African American separatists, Venezuelan socialists and anti-Semites of every conceivable form and type?" (Link:
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2019-03-14/ty-article-opinion/.premium/russias-role-in-an-anti-semitism-fest-for-fascists-feminists-spies-and-neo-nazi/0000017f-e321-d38f-a57f-e7738c060000)
My U of T professor friend attended this conference, and said he saw no examples of far-right behavior, which leads me to conclude that this is slander on gigaliberal RR's part against Iranian academia for platforming genuine anti-imperialism.
The literature professor I know is a liberal and feminist who teaches Judith Butler, Deleuze, and other postmodernists loved by academics in the west. She's even anti-IRI. This just goes to show that despite the state sanctioned anti-liberalism in Iran, liberals still have academic freedom, and aren't being shut up. The same can't be said for dissenting voices in western academia. Look how Steven Salaita was treated by an American university for being anti-Zionist.
Whatever you think of the Islamic Republic, there's no denying they have a far more robust and free academic culture than we do in the west. The Iranian police would never dare storm a university the way the American gestapo did to shut down Palestine encampments, either.