A prominent UCLA professor has criticized the university for including, in its 9/11 events this week, the lawyer who defended the jihadist responsible for his son’s death.
Ninety-year-old Judea Pearl expressed feeling “ashamed of my university” over the inclusion of Melanie T. Partow, accusing UCLA of “weaponizing” the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks.
His son, Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal journalist, was killed by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan in 2002 after being misled into an interview with an Islamic scholar.
A disturbing video of his murder was released, in which Daniel Pearl stated that he was from California and his family was Jewish before his execution.
The California Post reported on Wednesday that UCLA was featuring Partow and a controversial Yale professor who described post-9/11 counterterrorism as “racist.”
This sparked outrage among survivors and first responders who criticized the university for “blaming the victims.”
Pearl, who is part of UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering faculty, told The Post: “Colleagues inform me that, sadly, UCLA Law School is guilty of such practice: Weaponizing the painful days of 9/11 and 10/7 to promote hateful ideologies.”
He continued: “Having lost a son to such an ideology, I stand ashamed of my university.”
The UCLA symposium, titled “25 Years After 9/11: Reimagining Freedom, Justice, and Security,” will include Partow in the two-day event on Thursday and Friday.
Partow represents Mohammed, a terrorist who claimed responsibility for beheading Daniel Pearl after kidnapping him in Karachi in early 2002.
He believed he was meeting an Islamic scholar for an interview.
According to a Pentagon transcript from 2007, Mohammed stated: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl.”
He also added: “For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.”
Partow is a civil rights and international human rights litigator, as outlined in her lecturer biography at the UC Irvine School of Law.
She worked at the International Criminal Court and recently attracted attention for issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Partow has been representing Mohammed since February 2020 and is a member of the Military Commissions Defense Organization Civilian Attorney Pool for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
She is set to speak on a panel titled “Torture, Rendition, and Detention: The Erosion of the Rights Regime post 9/11,” focusing on the expanded counterterrorism powers the US and other nations have implemented since the attacks.
Partow is defending Mohammed alongside other attorneys as he faces charges in a US military tribunal for aiding the September 11 attackers.
The trial is still in the pretrial phase.
Judea Pearl reflected on his son’s execution last month.
“In his last words, he said the town of Brockton is where there’s a street named after my great grandfather, who was one of the founders of the town,” he told NewsNation.
“For us, it was surprising because we haven’t mentioned his grandfather very frequently in our family but it became a statement of Jewish identity, of Jewish pride, of Zionist accomplishment, building towns,” he said.
“It was surprising to me in the last minutes of his life, under the threat of being killed, he hung on to that.”
The UCLA School of Law is set to open the event on Thursday before concluding it on the anniversary of the attack that killed more than 3,000 people.
The discussion will feature several controversial speakers, including Partow and Yale professor Aslı Ü. Bâli, who previously labeled counterterrorism as a “racist gravy train.”
The event comes at a time when UCLA is facing lawsuits from the Trump administration for allegedly failing to address antisemitism on campus or protect Jewish students and Israeli employees.
“It’s absolutely absurd,” Jim McCaffrey, an FDNY lieutenant during the attacks who responded to the Twin Towers, told The Post.
“They’re pointing fingers at the victims. We’re the bad guys for being attacked. It’s mind-boggling. What’s going on in academia?”
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