A woman stands in front of a long table with six chess boards and six seated players
Woman Grandmaster Mitra Hejazipour plays six games at once in a chess exhibition at Stanford.

Iranian Studies program hosts chess champion and women's rights activist

Mitra Hejazipour, an Iranian-French woman grandmaster in chess, visited Stanford in May as a guest of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences. Hejazipour gave a talk about her chess career and women's rights advocacy.

 

Hejazipour was a chess star from a young age and traveled internationally for competitions. She saw women in different contexts and began to question the restrictions placed on women by the Islamic Republic of Iran. These experiences outside of Iran as well as activism by other Iranian women led to a pivotal moment in 2019. Knowing that she was risking her chess career, Hejazipour decided not to wear her required hijab, or headscarf, at the 2019 World Chess Championship in Moscow. She was dismissed from the Iranian national team in 2020 and cannot return to her home country. Now a French citizen and member of France’s national team, she uses her platform as a chess champion to speak out about the importance of supporting Iranian women as they fight for human rights and gender equality. 

 

As part of her visit to Stanford, Hejazipour played chess with students. She participated in a simultaneous exhibition game against six opponents and defeated all competitors after 90 minutes. 

June 11, 2024
Three students sitting behind chess boards set up for games smile at one another.
Stanford students share a laugh as they await the start of their exhibition games with Woman Grandmaster Mitra Hejazipour. Student competitors included undergraduate and graduate students. They ranged in skill level from beginner to intermediate.
Six college-age students sit at a long table, each behind a chess board. One of the students has an adult opponent standing on the other side of the table.
Hejazipour considers her next move against first-year student Itai Reingold-Nutman. Hejazipour became a woman grandmaster in 2015. Woman grandmaster is the highest title given by the International Chess Federation in its women-only category. Once earned, titles are held for life. 
A female college student seated at a table behind a chess board moves a chess piece while her opponent, an adult female standing on the other side of the table, looks on.
Graduate student and Stanford Chess Club member Stella Su moves the knight while playing against Hejazipour. Scholars think the game of chess originated in India and then traveled to Persia (now Iran) in the 5th century. 
An image showing handwritten notes about a chess move; a woman looking down and thinking, with one hand at her collarbone; a woman's hand touching a black chess piece.
(Left photo) Notes demonstrate a student player’s plans for how to proceed in the game. (Center photo) Hejazipour thinks about her next move. After she refused to wear her hijab at the Moscow championship, Hejazipour could not play chess competitively for any national team. She waited nearly four years to gain French citizenship and resume play. (Right photo) Hejazipour moves the bishop. Some of the English terms used in chess have connections to Persian: The piece known as the rook gets its name from the Persian word rukh, which means “chariot.” Today the rook looks like a tower, but it is thought to have looked like a chariot in early chess sets. The phrase shāh māt has yielded checkmate. It means “the king has no way out.” 
A male chess player run his right hand through his hair while down intently at the chess board. His opponent stands in front of the chess board of another player to his right.
Graduate student Derek Kuldinow thinks about how to respond to Hejazipour’s move. The woman grandmaster displayed her talent for chess early: She twice won the silver medal for girls under 10 at the World Youth Chess Championship, in 2002 and 2003. More recently, she won France’s women’s championship in 2023 and earned third place in the World Team Chess Championship as a member of the French national team the same year.
A seated male check players extends his hand across the board to a standing female player.
Tanmay Gara, a sophomore, reaches out to shake hands with Hejazipour at the end of their game. Gara was the last contender eliminated. When Hejazipour played chess as a citizen of Iran, she was not allowed to shake hands with male opponents and was closely followed by security during tournaments.
Three college-age females and one adult female standing in a semi-circle and smiling while conversing
After the chess exhibition, Hejazipour chats with students, from right, Armita Hosseini, Anita Taft, and Mehak Parwani. Hosseini and Taft are students in the Program in Iranian Studies. The program offers a specialization for undergraduates as part of a minor in Global Studies. Undergraduate and graduate students of any major can earn a certificate in Iranian Studies.
Photos by LiPo Ching; text by Marijane Leonard and Nilofar Saraj
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