Twenty-five years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, some American students are being taught about that terrible day without being told basic facts about who attacked the United States. A nonprofit providing 9/11 educational materials to schools omits Osama bin Laden, does not identify al-Qaeda as responsible for the attacks, and makes no mention of the Islamist ideology that motivated the terrorists.

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The controversy comes after Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia faced criticism over 9/11 materials that began with “Responding to Racism, Hate, and Bias against Muslims and Middle Eastern People” and instructed educators not to “center the extremists or the acts of the extremists.” The district pointed in part to materials from the 9:57 Project, a nonprofit that provides 9/11 lessons and connects veterans with students.

From The Daily Wire:

The 9:57 Project says it “provides six lessons on 9/11 and its effects.” Its 94-page curriculum completely omits who attacked America on 9/11, instead focusing on human interest details and the hardships of the United States’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan afterwards.

The word “Islam” does not appear. Some on the left claim describing the terrorists’ ideology as Islamist risks reflecting poorly on all Muslims. Yet that can’t explain not naming the individuals who committed the attacks. The curriculum does not include the name Osama bin Laden, and does not say al-Qaeda was behind the attacks. It mentions the terrorist group only once in saying that a United States service member was missed by his family because he was “fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan against al-Qaeda.”

It has worked with numerous school districts, such as the Pineville and Corbin districts in Kentucky.

Those omissions are significant because identifying the perpetrators is fundamental to understanding what happened on September 11. Al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, carried out the attacks, and the hijackers were motivated by an extremist Islamist ideology. Leaving those facts out does more than remove uncomfortable details; it deprives students of information necessary to understand why America was attacked and why the nation subsequently went to war in Afghanistan.

The controversy also raises questions about whether efforts to avoid offending Muslim students are influencing how the history is presented. Fairfax’s materials explicitly emphasize creating “safe spaces for Muslim and Middle Eastern students” while instructing teachers not to center the extremists. The 9:57 Project curriculum, meanwhile, manages to teach six lessons about 9/11 and its consequences without naming bin Laden or explaining al-Qaeda’s responsibility for the attacks.

Former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares compared the approach to teaching Pearl Harbor without identifying Imperial Japan as the attacker. Whatever educators’ intentions, critics argue that historical sensitivity should not require withholding basic facts from students.

The issue is especially striking in Fairfax County, home to many military families and located only miles from the Pentagon, where 184 people were killed on September 11. The district has since said it is reviewing its materials following criticism. Superintendent Michelle Reid has also emphasized that FCPS condemns the attacks and that Virginia’s history standards require students to study 9/11, terrorism, and the subsequent War on Terror.

As the generation that remembers September 11 firsthand grows older, schools will play an increasingly important role in determining what younger Americans know about that day. Honoring the victims and celebrating the extraordinary courage displayed aboard Flight 93, at the Pentagon, and in New York are worthy goals, but remembrance cannot come at the expense of truth. Students deserve an honest account of who attacked America, what motivated the terrorists, and how those attacks changed the nation. Let’s pray that America’s educators will have the courage and wisdom to teach difficult history truthfully, even when the facts are uncomfortable.

Share your prayers and scriptures for truth in America’s classrooms in the comments.

(Excerpt from The Daily Wire. Photo Credit: Hamid Mir – http://centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/features/pakistan/main/2011/05/03/feature-02, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36716340)