Here’s The 9/11 Memorial Poster One College Said Students Shouldn’t Display

This article has been updated to clarify that administrators did not expressly forbid students from displaying the posters.

Ripon College, a private school in Ripon, Wisconsin, recently told the Young America’s Foundation that they should not hang their 9/11 memorial posters on campus because it creates an “environment” in which Muslim students “would feel singled out and/or harassed.”

“The private school cited bias reports that were filed during last year’s Sept. 11 memorial project, a project that was a part of Young America’s Foundation’s iconic patriotism initiative which takes place across the country on campuses every year,” the Washington Examiner reports.

Asked by YAF in a meeting to explain why the student group’s posters (image below) were not approved, the college’s “Bias Protocol Board” reportedly informed the group that the posters’ focus on one religious identity, in this case radical forms of Islam, and associating it with terrorism “creates for some students here an environment which they feel like they are not able to learn [in].” YAF provided a partial transcript of their meeting:

According to administrators, the objections were “raised to the administration and the bias incident team about the environment that that [the poster] creates… That because of the focus, in this case relentlessly on one religious organization, one religious group, one religious identity—in associating that one religious identity with terrorist attacks which go back far before 9/11 and after 9/11— creates for some students here an environment which they feel like they are not able to learn.”

Administrators reminded the students that Ripon college is a private institution and therefore Ripon can decide what it feels is appropriate for display on campus and what is not. According to the administrators, they are allowed to rule on bias complaints using a “cost-benefit analysis” where they seek to understand “to what extent does something advance” or “hinder… the educational mission of the institution.”

YAF says they responded by pointing out that by suppressing these forms of speech, the college is opening itself up to criticism for censoring students from publicly acknowledging “key moments in our nation’s history.”

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Board members reportedly told YAF that a major point of their disagreement was that radical Islamist terrorism “represents a small percentage of the terrorist attacks that happened to this country” and “show a very small picture of a specific religion or nationality instead of the larger viewpoint.”

YAF responded by debunking the first claim, stating that from 1992 to 2017, Islamists were responsible for 92% of deaths caused by terrorism in the United States, and are “far and away, the deadliest group of terrorists by ideology.”

But the board maintained that showing only radical Islamic terror attacks could give students the impression that “all terrorism happens by Muslims.”

Among their complaints, board members pointed to the posters’ references to ISIS, the Iran hostage issue, and the Pulse night club massacre as examples of how the poster addresses topics outside of 9/11. But YAF argued otherwise, noting that the hostage crisis was “America’s first searing experience with Islamist terrorism,” that ISIS was born from al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Pulse was the most deadly attack by a radical Islamist since 9/11.

“This attempt by Ripon College’s ‘bias protocol board’ to sanitize the truth out of remembering the anniversary of September 11 proves the necessity of YAF’s iconic 9/11: Never Forget Project, as well as the need for bold YAF activists,” YAF spokesman Spencer Brown told Red Alert Politics. “YAF’s leadership in creating meaningful memorials on this important date in our nation’s history ensures that the rising generation remembers the 2,977 innocent lives lost. The administrators’ reliance on feelings rather than facts betrays their intention to cower from the truth rather than highlight the scourge of radical Islamist terror for what it is: evil.”

Update: YAF responds to Ripon College’s complaints about their reporting on the memorial.