WASHINGTON (September 10, 2025) – American citizens around the nation will pause this week to remember the victims of September 11th terror attacks, when nearly 3,000 people were killed when al Qaida hijackers crashed four jetliners into the twin towers, the Pentagon, and a field in southwest Pennsylvania. This year will mark 24 years since the work terror attack on American soil.
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Jon Lewis and Luke Baumgartner, research fellows at the George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Both can discuss how the embrace of violent and dehumanizing rhetoric by elected officials and prominent public figures creates the conditions for individuals to justify their real-world acts of political violence. They can also detail the trends in threats to public officials, the role of social media as a radicalizing factor, and the evolution of domestic extremist lone actor violence in recent years.
Lewis studies domestic violent extremism and homegrown violent extremism, with a specialization in the evolution of white supremacist and anti-government movements in the United States and federal responses to the threat. Baumgartner researches domestic violent extremism, white supremacist movements, and the role of military veterans in political violence.
Aram Gavoor is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a Professional Lecturer of Law at the George Washington University Law School. His expertise is in national security law, Artificial Intelligence policy, administrative law and federal courts. Dean Gavoor served as Senior Counsel for National Security in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as third-in-rank Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget, and in private practice. Dean Gavoor can speak to how America has changed in the NS space on account of 9/11, the individual liberties affect, the judicial affect, and even the U.S.'s recent return from non-state actor focus in NS to its more traditional model of interstate "great game" style competition.
Scott White is an Associate Professor and Director of the Cybersecurity Program and Cyber Academy at the George Washington University College of Professional Studies. Dr. White is an expert in cybersecurity, cybercrime, counter-terrorism and infrastructure protection. In addition to education expertise in the field, Dr. White has served on and consulted for a variety of law enforcement agencies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Dr. White could speak on what changed after 9/11 within the cyber security, privacy and protection realm.
Matt Dallek is a professor at GW’s Graduate School of Political Management, is a political historian with expertise in the intersection of social crises and political transformation, the evolution of the modern conservative movement, and liberalism and its critics. Along with four co-authored books, Dallek is the author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right, which explores the history and influence of America’s right-wing activism. Dr. Dallek can discuss historical context surrounding 9/11.
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