With the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks fast approaching, only two states out of 50 have mandated that schools teach the history of the horrific Islamic terrorist attacks.
While students in Florida and Arizona learn about the history surrounding the deadly attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon — as well as the fourth attempt that was thwarted over Pennsylvania by passengers aboard the hijacked plane — ten other states have laws that simply “encourage” such lessons. But as The New York Post reported, there is no specific direction regarding what form such a lesson must take — meaning that it could be something as simple as a moment of silence or a brief assembly.
What appears to be filling the void could be more concerning than a simple lack of instruction on the topic, however, as at least four states — Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Oregon — have recommended revisionist curriculum such as “Teaching Beyond September 11th.” Developed by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, the curriculum devotes far more time and focus to the post-9/11 rise of “Islamophobia” than to the motivations behind the attacks in the first place.
“On the 11th of September 2001, 19 hijackers flew two airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one airplane into the Pentagon in Virginia, and a fourth into a field in Pennsylvania. A total of 2,996 people were killed, including the hijackers,” one passage reads.
It does not delve into radical Islamist beliefs driving the attackers, and its treatment of al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden is noncommittal at best: “The U.S. accused Saudi national Osama bin Laden, living in Afghanistan at the time, of being the mastermind behind the attacks.”
Lesson plans include topics like “Islamophobia and the Oval Office,” “Right-wing Extremism,” “Islamophobia in Global Context,” “Surveillance of Muslims,” “Civil Liberties after 9/11,” and “The Muslim and African Ban.”
One lesson singled out by The Post discussed a Danish cartoon depicting Muhammad — which sparked riots that resulted in more than 250 deaths — and asked students to consider how the media response to the deadly riots had “presented certain values as more important than the fact that the cartoons were offensive and racist.”
New York state Assemblyman Matt Slater (R-Yorktown) criticized the curriculum, saying, “Nearly 3,000 innocent people were murdered by al Qaeda on September 11th. They were the victims. The terrorists were the perpetrators. Any curriculum that blurs that fundamental truth, or makes the victims secondary to a political narrative, isn’t teaching history, it’s rewriting it.”
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