UCLA chancellor faces faculty outcry over 9/11 statement, a test of academic freedom
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Set us as preferred A public message from UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk distancing the university from a law school 9/11 symposium that included a lawyer for the alleged “mastermind” of the attack has ignited an intensifying outcry among UC faculty and hundreds of academics nationwide over what they see as a high-level infringement on academic freedom.In letters to Frenk this week, dozens of UCLA School of Law faculty demanded a retraction and called Frenk’s statement “not befitting of a leader.” More than 200 signatories to a nationwide open letter that included professors at Harvard and Stanford also called for a retraction.The influential leaders of UCLA’s Academic Senate sent a more measured letter to Frenk about their “concerns and reservations,” urging administrators and faculty to work together to uphold academic freedom.The Sept.10-11 symposium in question examined the legal consequences of the U.S.
response to the attacks, including torture, detention and government surveillance.Right-leaning media criticized its inclusion of a Defense Department lawyer who represented alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a speaker from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group.
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.” International human rights groups have used the term, but Israel has disputed it, and major American Jewish leaders have said the accusation is antisemitic.Faculty organizers said the event addressed questions central to the law school’s mission, including the rights of defendants and limits on government power.Frenk issued a statement about the symposium on Sept.
11 saying UCLA did not endorse the event: “We reject antisemitism and terrorism in all their forms and we believe our campus must be a place wher...