Feb 19, 2015 01:01 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

The University of Massachusetts (UMass) - Amherst has backtracked on its controversial policy barring Iranian students from certain graduate programs.

According to Boston.com, the UMass flagship campus announced they will accept Iranian students to chemical, computer and mechanical engineering graduate programs. The school initially said they were complying with the U.S.' sanctions against Iran, but have since taken a step back on that assertion.

"This approach reflects the university's longstanding commitment to wide access to educational opportunities," Michael Malone, vice chancellor for research and engagement at UMass - Amherst, said in a statement. "We have always believed that excluding students from admission conflicts with our institutional values and principles. It is now clear, after further consultation and deliberation, that we can adopt a less restrictive policy."

The school's Iranian Graduate Students Association and the National Iranian American Council expressed outrage over the policy change. While some legal experts questioned the necessity of the policy, others said it was only strange that the school publicly announced it.

UMass - Amherst said they consulted the U.S. State Department and other outside legal sources after hearing disapproval for the policy. Two UMass student groups even organized an event for Wednesday night to discuss an organized protest and the faculty senate was also going to organize an emergency meeting, the Huffington Post reported.

"They still haven't offered a reasoning behind why they think federal policy requires them to make any changes to curriculum at all," Michael Havlin, a graduate student at UMass who outspokenly criticized the policy, told the Huffington Post. "I hope that this announcement wasn't simply a backdoor way for them to get media coverage off their backs while they continue to effectively discriminate by altering each student's curriculum in an extreme way."

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