Remembering September 11 Twenty-Five Years Later: Reflections from UCLA political scientist Luwei Ying
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This September marks twenty-five years since the attacks of September 11, 2001 — a milestone that invites both remembrance and reflection on how the world has changed in the decades since. To mark the occasion, Luwei Ying, assistant professor of political science at UCLA and a CSW|Streisand Center member, reflected on the anniversary in relation to her research examining international relations through the lens of civil conflict and political violence.
Professor Ying received CSW|Streisand Center’s 2023–2024 Faculty Research Grant to study online propaganda, and its 2025–2026 Faculty Manuscript Development Grant to support her ongoing research on political violence and extremism. Her work offers a valuable lens for understanding not only what happened twenty-five years ago, but how our collective understanding of terrorism has evolved since.
As Professor Ying explains, 9/11 did not invent terrorism — but it transformed the issue into one of the defining political and security concerns of the twenty-first century. The attacks reshaped American foreign and domestic policy in lasting ways, and they sparked an enormous expansion in terrorism research, much of which continues to inform policy today.
Perhaps the most resonant part of Professor Ying’s reflection concerns how societies respond in the aftermath of violence. She argues that we should hold perpetrators responsible for their actions while refusing to judge millions of other people on the basis of their religion, ethnicity, nationality, or origin. Refusing collective hatred, she notes, is not only a moral principle — it is also part of an effective response to terrorism.
Read the full interview on UCLA Newsroom.
Image credit: Tina Hordzwick/UCLA
