This post was updated Feb. 20 at 1:21 p.m.
Bari Weiss will no longer come to campus Feb. 27 to deliver the annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture, the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations announced Wednesday.
Weiss’ team pulled out of the on-campus lecture, said Steve Lurie, the associate vice chancellor for campus and community safety, in an emailed statement. Her team cited insufficient security measures as reasoning for the cancellation, said Judea Pearl, the father of lecture namesake Daniel Pearl – a Jewish American journalist kidnapped and killed by Islamic extremists in 2002 – in an X post.
The university was prepared to provide security for Weiss, Lurie added.
“UCLA remains committed to supporting public programming which represents a wide range of viewpoints, with safety planning tailored to each event,” Lurie said in the statement.
Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, was scheduled to speak at Schoenberg Hall on Feb. 27. While the campus lecture is off, Weiss is still hoping to conduct the lecture over Zoom, said Margaret Peters, the associate director of the Burkle Center, in a texted statement.
A final decision has not yet been made on whether Weiss – who was slated to speak about the future of journalism – will conduct the lecture virtually, Peters added in the statement.
The annual lecture, organized by the Burkle Center, has previously hosted journalists and international relations scholars including Jake Tapper, Bob Woodward, Condoleezza Rice and Anderson Cooper.
Weiss worked as an op-ed staff editor and writer for The New York Times for about three years before resigning in July 2020, accusing her colleagues of stifling non-liberal viewpoints and creating a hostile work environment. She then founded The Free Press – an outlet she created as an alternative to mainstream media, which she said is often too ideological.
Weiss has come under fire after joining CBS as editor-in-chief following the sale of The Free Press for $150 million to Paramount, CBS’ parent company. Paramount required approval from the Federal Communications Commission – which is led by a Trump appointee – to complete its recent multibillion-dollar merger, with critics accusing the network of shifting to the right to appease the administration – including by hiring Weiss, according to NPR.
Others have criticized her choice to pull a 60 Minutes segment about poor living conditions in an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, citing free speech concerns. While members of CBS News’ standards and legal teams cleared the segment, Weiss said she would not run the piece without an on-the-record comment from a member of the Trump administration, according to NPR.
The story eventually ran Jan. 18, but did not include an on-camera interview with a member of the Trump administration.
UC President James Milliken called Weiss’ choice to pull out of the event disappointing in a Feb. 20 statement. Chancellor Julio Frenk and Weiss are working to find another time for her to speak, he added.
“The University of California will be resolute in protecting free expression on our campuses, and we will take all steps necessary to ensure the safety of speakers, those attending events, and the members of our community,” Milliken said in the statement. “We will do everything we can to make sure speakers are not prevented from speaking on our campuses because some disagree with the content of constitutionality protected speech.”
A petition demanding that the Burkle Center cancel the event received nearly 11,000 signatures. The petition cited Weiss’ alleged alignment with the Trump administration – including through her choice to pull the 60 Minutes segment – as reasoning for why she should not give the speech and accused her of making xenophobic comments.
Peters, who is also the Department of Political Science’s vice chair for graduate studies, said she plans to resign as associate director of the Burkle Center if it follows through with the event in any capacity. She added that she believes Weiss has used the guise of free speech to attack people on the left whose opinions she does not agree with – and having her speak at a signatory lecture would legitimize these actions.
“To invite somebody who is working against that mission in highly powerful places just seems like anathema in the university mission,” Peters said.
