One week after Chancellor Julio Frenk condemned a School of Law symposium about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, more than 270 law professors nationwide are raising concerns about academic freedom at the university. 

Frenk said in a Sept. 11 statement that UCLA’s views do not align with the two-day symposium – titled “25 Years After 9/11: Reimagining Freedom, Justice, and Security” – which examined how the government’s response to the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center shaped war, immigration enforcement, surveillance and civil rights. 

The talk included Melanie Partow, an attorney who represented alleged 9/11 conspirator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as a symposium guest speaker. Frenk said in his statement that he supported UCLA computer science professor Judea Pearl, whose son – Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl – was killed by Mohammed in 2002. 

Pearl said in an emailed statement to The Bruin that platforming Partow and Hussam Ayloush – executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations – was “despicable.”

“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,” Frenk said in the statement. 

[Related: Julio Frenk condemns UCLA Law symposium featuring attorney of alleged 9/11 conspirator]

Law professors from universities including Stanford University and Harvard University signed a Thursday letter in support of UCLA faculty, calling on Frenk to retract remarks they claimed linked the symposium to antisemitism and terrorism without evidence. UCLA faculty originally released a separate letter against Frenk’s statement earlier the same day, which has garnered 64 signatories as of Saturday. 

The American Association of University Professors also published a statement Wednesday calling for Frenk to withdraw his condemnation of the event to reaffirm the academic freedom of UCLA faculty to organize sensitive events.

UCLA Media Relations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the faculty letters.

Ahilan Arulanantham and LaToya Baldwin Clark, law professors who helped organize the symposium, said they believe Frenk’s statement was unwarranted because it placed UCLA’s nonendorsement of the event alongside a condemnation of antisemitism and terrorism without identifying specific remarks made at the symposium to support the implication. 

“We call on the Chancellor to retract his statement publicly, or, at a minimum, state simply and unequivocally that he never had any basis for believing that this symposium promoted terrorism or antisemitism and never intended to imply that it did,” UCLA law faculty said in the Thursday letter. 

UCLA law professors also requested in the letter that Frenk meet with concerned faculty and the broader law school community, alleging that he did not communicate with symposium organizers before releasing his statement or send a representative to attend the event.

“You can blather on and on about academic freedom and reciprocity and these ideas, but if there is no evidence for maligning a set of people, then you shouldn’t do it,” Arulanantham said. “It’s that simple.” 

The UCLA Academic Senate sent a separate Wednesday letter to Frenk, raising concerns that his statement on the symposium violated freedom of inquiry. Frenk said in a Thursday written response to Academic Senate leaders that his original statement did not infringe on academic freedom and did not criticize the School of Law’s ability to hold the event.

The chancellor, however, did not address why his original statement placed UCLA’s nonendorsement of the event alongside condemnation of antisemitism and terrorism. 

Arulanantham and Baldwin Clark said they believe Frenk’s statement mischaracterized the speakers and the symposium itself. 

“What the chancellor did was malign our entire conference, as if inviting Melanie Partow or having the executive director of CAIR in attendance in any way promoted terrorism or was antisemitic,” Baldwin Clark said. 

Baldwin Clark said Partow’s representation of someone accused of a crime does not amount to an endorsement of the alleged conduct. 

Hiroshi Motomura, an immigration policy expert and law professor who attended the event, said Patrow did not discuss the allegations against Mohammed during the talk. She instead spoke about the structure of military commissions and the tribunals used to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Motomura added.

“She explicitly stated she could not and would not comment on any particular representation,” Baldwin Clark said. “She was talking about how the government’s role in this type of prosecution has evolved since 9/11, and the ways that it shifted over time.”

Arulanantham said he invited Ayloush because of his expertise addressing civil rights issues affecting Muslim communities following 9/11. Motomura, who attended Ayloush’s panel, said Ayloush cast everything as healing the divisions that opened up following the attacks.

“For me, it really felt like he took the trouble to emphasize the collaborations with Jewish groups,” Motomura said. “It’s hard to think of anything that he says is antisemitic.“

Jasleen Kohli, executive director of the School of Law’s Critical Race Studies program and an organizer of the event, said in an emailed statement that she hoped to educate students who had little or no memory of 9/11 about its aftermath and lasting effects on legal institutions. 

She added that her opening remarks Thursday honored the people who were killed in the attacks and those who later died or became ill from exposure to the disaster.

“Remembering those harms does not diminish the horror of what happened on September 11 or the grief of the families who lost people that day,” Kohli said in her written statement. “We should be capable of holding both.”

In the future, potential future nonendorsements from UCLA administrators could make faculty hesitant to invite speakers, Arulanantham said. 

“The chancellor’s statement and the whole episode has done significant damage to the climate of academic freedom at UCLA,” Arulanantham said.