 In August 2012, following years in which Iranian women students have outperformed Iranian male students, 36 universities announced that 77 BA and BSc courses would be "single gender" and not co-ed.Under this policy, undergraduate women are excluded from a wide variety of studies in leading institutions, including English literature, English translation, hotel management, archaeology, nuclear physics, computer science, electrical engineering, industrial engineering, and business management.Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian Nobel laureate and human rights lawyer exiled in the United Kingdom, wrote to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay over the move, saying that Iran's true agenda was to lower the proportion of female students from 65% to below 50%, which would weaken Iran's feminist movement in its campaign against discriminatory Islamic laws.