UCLA chancellor rebukes law school event featuring attorney of alleged 9/11 'mastermind'

Jaweed Kaleem, Los Angeles Times on Sep 12, 2026

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LOS ANGELES — In a rare rebuke of a campus event, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk on Friday distanced the university from a law school symposium about the 9/11 terrorist attacks that has faced criticism for including a lawyer for alleged 9/11 "mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, along with speakers whom critics accuse of sympathizing with extremism or being antisemitic.

The symposium, "25 Years After 9/11," was sponsored by five law school centers and ran Thursday and Friday, highlighting legal issues raised by the U.S. response to the attacks. Topics included torture, rendition, detention, immigration enforcement and government surveillance. The program said America's response ushered in "sweeping expansions of state power."

In his Friday afternoon statement, Frenk said: "UCLA's values are clear. We reject antisemitism and terrorism in all their forms, and we believe our campus must be a place where the dignity of every member of our community is respected. Nothing about this event at the UCLA School of Law, which we do not endorse, changes or qualifies those commitments."

Melanie T. Partow, an attorney who has represented Mohammed at Guantanamo Bay, was listed as a speaker on a Friday morning panel titled, "Torture, Rendition, and Detention: The Erosion of the Rights Regime Post-9/11." The 9/11 Commission report described Mohammed as the "principal architect" of the attacks. The Washington Free Beacon first reported on the event.

Some members of the Jewish campus community also objected to the program's description of Israel's war in Gaza, launched after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, as "genocide." A United Nations commission said in September 2025 that Israeli authorities had genocidal intent in Gaza. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reached similar conclusions. Israel has rejected the finding, and major American Jewish leaders have called the allegation antisemitic.

This month, more than 5,000 Jewish public figures and allies — including several UC professors — signed an open letter opposing the accusation. The letter said "the massacre of October 7 has been systematically downplayed, while Israeli actions have been distorted and amplified."

Frenk also said that "academic freedom does not require us to be neutral about antisemitism or terrorism. Speaking at UCLA should never be mistaken for the university's approval, endorsement, or acceptance of an individual's viewpoints, or our institution's indifference to the pain their presence may cause members of our community."

The symposium was organized by several official institutes, centers or programs housed within the law school: the Critical Race Studies Program; the International and Comparative Law Program; the Institute for Technology, Law and Policy; the Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law and Policy; and the Promise Institute for Human Rights. Leaders and spokespeople for the groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the chancellor's statement.

It was unclear whether Partow spoke. The posted program said the event was "an in-person event and will not be streamed live or recorded." Partow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mohammed confessed to killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was beheaded in Pakistan in 2002. Mohammed identified Pearl by his religion when he said he was behind the killing during a 2007 Guantanamo Bay military hearing, according to a Defense Department transcript.

Pearl's father, Judea Pearl, is a longtime UCLA computer science professor who criticized the event.

In a statement to The Times, Pearl said he was "ashamed of my university and, especially, the five centers within the UCLA School of Law sponsoring this disturbing symposium."

"To my esteemed colleagues at these five centers: Please find different dates to engage us with your political sophistry," Pearl said.

Pearl, 90, co-founded the Daniel Pearl Foundation with his late wife, Ruth, who died in 2021. The foundation co-sponsors the annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA, which "celebrates the memory of Daniel Pearl as a prominent journalist who dedicated his life to bringing joy and understanding to the world." Next month, the lecture will host Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was imprisoned in Russia for 16 months before his release in a prisoner exchange in August 2024.

In his statement, Frenk commended Judea Pearl, calling him a "deeply valued member of the UCLA community."

"I have profound respect for him, for the memory of his son Daniel, and for his decades-long commitment to combating antisemitism, terrorism and hatred," Frenk said. "The brutal murder of Daniel Pearl was an act of unspeakable evil, and I support Judea and his family."