Cobb Hall at the University of Chicago. Photo: Dion J. Pierre.

A New York based law firm is denying that it sponsored a University of Chicago Law School event at which two panelists accused Israel of being an apartheid state.

Despite the denial, an advertisement for the event, titled “Apartheid: International Law in the Israel-Palestine Conflict” and held on October 12, included a note thanking White & Case LLP for being “our sponsors.”

The event featured Omar Shakir, a BDS supporter and director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Darryl Li, a University of Chicago anthropology professor who has said that “Israel has achieved far more than the [South African] apartheid regime could have hoped to accomplish.”

“White & Case was not a sponsor of this event,” a spokesman claimed in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon on Monday. “Our firm does support International Law Societies, as do other law firms similar to us, not just at the University of Chicago Law School but at many law schools across the country.”

The spokesman added that the firm was “not involved in or consulted on any of the programming decisions these student organizations make” and would have “insisted” on not being associated with the event “in any way.”

“We have conveyed this position to the [International Law Society] at the University of Chicago,” he continued.

On October 22, however, White & Case is scheduled to participate in another event where Omar Shakir will speak on a panel titled “Racism and the Crime of Apartheid.” The talk will take place at the American Branch of the International Law Association’s “International Law Weekend.”

Last week, ABILA altered the panel’s description, deleting language specifically accusing Israel of apartheid and equating Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Chinese government’s policies towards the Uyghurs.

The description said, “From Myanmar’s abuses of Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine State, to the Israeli authorities’ systematic oppression of Palestinians, to the Chinese government’s actions in Xinxiang against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, human rights organizations, UN bodies, experts, and scholars have concluded that the crime of apartheid is being committed with impunity.”

ABILA later altered it to say, “Today, in contexts across the world, human rights organizations, U.N. bodies, experts, and scholars have concluded that the crime of apartheid is being committed with impunity.”

White & Case’s claim to be disassociating from the Oct 12th anti-Israel event comes several months after it issued a report concluding that a Chicago based investment firm, Morningstar, did not demonstrate material bias against Israel or promote the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement when it assigned low environment, social, and governance (ESG) ratings to Israeli companies.

US state officials, however, have argued that Morningstar may be engaging in BDS, citing a practice that placed Israeli businesses and those that do business with Israel on a “watch list.” In August, 17 Attorney Generals representing states that have passed anti-BDS laws including Virginia, Florida, Arizona, and Texas, issued a letter arguing that Morningstar’s ESG criteria draws no distinction between Israel and countries such as Russia and China and “inevitably leads to anti-Israel bias.”

The firm, “may be furthering the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel,” the letter said, noting that its “research and ratings depend on information from known supporters of the BDS movement.”

In June, Morningstar CEO Kanul Kapoor issued a statement denying that the firm supports BDS, citing White & Case’s report as evidence that it never “encouraged divestment from Israel.”