To the Editor:

Regarding the article entitled "The Epic, Secret Struggle to Educate Iran's Bahais" (The Chronicle Review, May 13), I would like to thank its author, Sohrab Ahmari, for bringing this issue to light. I offer one salutary postscript. He mentions the University of Texas at Austin as the only top-tier institution of the 12 that Niknaz Aftahi applied to that considers the Bahai Institute of Higher Education (BIHE) undergraduate degree as an equivalent degree for graduate-admissions purposes. I am happy to relay that the University of California at Berkeley allows BIHE degrees to be considered equivalent (without need for a special plea to the admissions dean) if a graduate program wishes to admit the applicant.

I am pleased to add that Ms. Aftahi has been accepted at UC-Berkeley and plans to begin this fall as a student in the master-of­-architecture program.

Andrew J. Szeri
Dean of the Graduate Division
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, Calif.