U.S. Senator David Vitter (R-LA) has a simple question for the U.S. State Department, why are Iranian students being allowed to study nuclear engineering and other subjects that can help build a nuclear weapon? Back in February, it was reported that the University of Massachusetts Amherst had coordinated with the State Department to lift a ban on Iranian students studying in graduate courses related to the development of nuclear weapons.

Breitbart reports the ban was lifted after protests from the faculty and students at the university:

After consulting with the State Department, the university announced Thursday that it would drop the ban put into effect earlier in the month and continue to allow Iranian students to enroll in graduate classes in chemical, electrical, computer, mechanical, and industrial engineering, microbiology, physics, and polymer science.

According to WWLP.com, UMass Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy apologized for the ban, though many faculty wanted to hear more than an apology.

“I have accepted responsibility for the way it came out,” Subbaswamy said. “We’ve come together as a community, and we now understand how to move forward. That will be much more inclusive, much more consultation, in terms of how we comply with the law.”

“Iranian students are the 3rd largest foreign cohort of students,” computer science professor Emery Berger said. “You know, we are concerned that this is giving people the wrong impression. This should’ve never ever happened, and it can’t happen again. And people who are responsible should pay some kind of price.”

It seems like it would be common sense to ban Iranian students from studying courses to help that country build a nuclear bomb. In fact, we already have a law that passed in 2012 that would do just that. Here’s a screencap of the relevant part of the law:

On Monday, Senator Vitter sent a letter to the Inspector General of the State Department and calling upon him to investigate this. Senator Vitter wants to know what advice the State Department is giving to universities on the matter of Iranian students studying nuclear engineering. Vitter also wants to know how many other Iranian students are in American universities studying nuclear engineering and what universities are they in.

This seems like a very common sense position. If the goal of the United States is to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, it makes sense to bar Iranian students from studying nuclear related fields in the U.S. Perhaps I’m new to this whole international relations thing, but it seems logical not to help build the intellectual base of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

But, misguided fools disagree with that in the name of political correctness. Protesting this policy is like complaining about not allowing Japanese students to study aviation engineering during World War II. Important thing to remember is that we’re not talking about Iranian-Americans here or even legal Iranian immigrants to the U.S., we’re talking about Iranian nationals. If this ban included Iranian-Americans and Iranian-born green card holders, I too would have a problem with a ban.

Politically, this is a no-brainer for David Vitter. He stands up to the cultural Marxists, which is a plus with Louisiana activist conservatives. He also gets to beat up on Iran more, which is never a loser.

Even better, Vitter is highlighting for the country the existence of such an absurd policy. No wonder why Americans don’t have any trust in their government anymore.