The OSU played a central role in the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Members of the OSU central council, who included Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well as Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, Mohsen Kadivar, Mohsen Aghajari, and Abbas Abdi, were regularly received by the Ayatollah Khomeini himself. (One of the first political offices held by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was as representative of students at his university, Elm-o Sanaat, at the OSU in 1979.)