Part 1: Chapter 3 Summary

Nafisi now sets the scene in her Tehran apartment on the first day of class for the seven.

Universities in Tehran were periodically subjected to waves of suppression by religious authorities. Women and men were segregated and punished for speaking with members of the opposite sex. Nafisi's university was regarded as the most liberal in Iran. Officials at the Ministry of Education asked of Nafisi's school whether they thought they were in Switzerland. "Switzerland" had become a strange byword for all things lax and decadent or Western.

Nafisi reflects on her sudden resignation from the university and the reasons for it. The arbitrariness of the governance of the university was the chief reason. The university even refused to accept her resignation. They seemed to think that Nafisi had no right to decide to quit.

Life at the university had become unbearable...