UCLA School of Law marked the 25th anniversary of September 11 with a two-day symposium, “25 Years After 9/11: Reimagining Freedom, Justice, and Security,” on September 10–11. The sponsors were five law-school centers: Critical Race Studies, International & Comparative Law, the Institute for Technology, Law & Policy, the Promise Institute for Human Rights, and the Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law & Policy.
Melanie T. Partow, a defense attorney for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, spoke Friday morning on the panel “Torture, Rendition, and Detention: The Erosion of the Rights Regime post 9/11.” She did not respond to the Los Angeles Times.1
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| Partow is one of the defense lawyers for Mohammed, a terrorist who boasted about beheading Daniel Pearl. |
Mohammed is the accused architect of the September 11 attacks. In a 2007 Pentagon transcript he said he beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002.2 Daniel Pearl’s father, Professor Judea Pearl, has been at UCLA for 56 years.3 He founded and hosts the Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture on that campus. Next month that lecture is scheduled to feature Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.1
Pearl told the New York Post he was ashamed of his university. He accused the law school of “weaponizing the painful days of 9/11 and 10/7 to promote hateful ideologies.”4 He later told the Los Angeles Times: “To my esteemed colleagues at these five centers: Please find different dates to engage us with your political sophistry.”1 He also said a September 11 event “should be used to commemorate the victims of that attack: Innocent Americans.”5
The program gave the dead fifteen minutes on Friday morning. Lunch got an hour.6 The panels addressed torture, detention, surveillance, immigration enforcement, “White Christian nationalism,” and “the ongoing genocide in Gaza.” Other speakers included Hussam Ayloush of CAIR-California, who after October 7 said “Israel should be attacked”; Yale’s Aslı Ü. Bâli, who called counterterrorism a “racist gravy train”; and Amna Akbar, who called the alleged murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson a “spectacular act of protest.”7 No panel listed 9/11 families, first responders, or prosecutors.
A UCLA Law spokesman had said the school has a “longstanding commitment to academic freedom,” that program events do not speak for the school, and that it “does not withdraw invitations because a speaker or viewpoint is sensitive or controversial.”8
On Friday, September 11, Chancellor Julio Frenk issued a campus statement. He said Judea Pearl is “a deeply valued member of the UCLA community,” called Daniel Pearl’s murder “an act of unspeakable evil,” and said: “Nothing about this event at the UCLA School of Law, which we do not endorse, changes or qualifies those commitments.” He added: “Academic freedom does not require us to be neutral about antisemitism or terrorism.” He said he understood why Pearl and others were “deeply hurt.”9 He did not cancel the symposium. He did not remove Partow. She spoke that morning.1
Organizers answered Frenk. Law professors Ahilan Arulanantham and LaToya Baldwin Clark said they were “enormously proud of the symposium we organized, and UCLA should be too.” They said critics who did not attend missed memorials, including Arulanantham’s account of being in Manhattan on September 11 and Jasleen Kohli’s account that her mother nearly boarded a hijacked flight.
Law professor Aaron Littman said he was “profoundly disappointed in our chancellor, as a member of the UCLA law faculty and a Jew,” and that treating the invitation of a defense lawyer as an endorsement of the client’s deeds “is a threat to democracy.”
Law professor Seana Shiffrin called the program “academically serious” and said a torture-and-rendition panel is stronger with counsel who has handled those cases. She did not attend Partow’s panel.1
A defense lawyer may speak on campus any week of the year. Guantánamo counsel is a lawful job. September 11 is not an ordinary programming date. UCLA put Mohammed’s lawyer on that date, at Pearl’s university, while Pearl’s own lecture in his son’s name remains on the calendar. Frenk said the university does not endorse the event. The five centers held it anyway. Pearl asked them to pick different dates. They did not.
Notes
1 Jaweed Kaleem, “UCLA chancellor rebukes law school event featuring attorney of alleged 9/11 ‘mastermind,’” Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2026. Link
2 Pentagon transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, released 2007, quoted in Ross O’Keefe, New York Post, September 10, 2026, and in Kaleem, Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2026.
3 “At 90, UCLA’s Judea Pearl is still asking the big questions,” UCLA Newsroom, September 11, 2026. Link
4 Ross O’Keefe, “UCLA professor blasts university for hosting lawyer tied to son’s murderer,” New York Post, September 10, 2026. Link
5 Ross O’Keefe, “UCLA chancellor condemns controversial 9/11 campus event,” New York Post, September 11, 2026. Link
6 UCLA School of Law, “25 Years After 9/11 Symposium” program, September 10–11, 2026. Link
7 Aaron Sibarium, “‘Israel Should Be Attacked’: UCLA To Host 9/11 Symposium Featuring Terror Apologists,” Washington Free Beacon, September 8, 2026. Link
8 UCLA Law spokesman, quoted in Sibarium, Washington Free Beacon, September 8, 2026.
9 Chancellor Julio Frenk, “Comment regarding media coverage on Sept. 10,” UCLA Newsroom, September 11, 2026. Link
