Exclusive | Left accused of ‘whitewashing’ 9/11 in schools: ‘A moment of silence is not an education’
A conservative legal group has urged parents to keep a close eye on what schools tell their kids about the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and guard against what it calls an “ideological rewriting of American history.”
The “Parent Toolkit” unveiled by America First Legal on Friday, the 25th anniversary of the tragedy, argues that students should be taught not only about the attacks that killed 2,977 people, but also about the Al Qaeda terror group, its Islamist ideology and failures of the US immigration and visa system that allowed the 19 hijackers to enter and remain in the country.
The AFL initiative comes one day after The Post reported that the Trump administration was offering American teachers new guidance on how to remember 9/11 for students who weren’t alive on that tragic day.
The toolkit offers template letters for parents to request to view lesson plans, teacher-training materials and other 9/11-related content from schools and outside organizations alike. One template requests a response within five business days — as well as confirmation in writing if no 9/11-related instructional materials exist.
Another pre-written letter demands school officials implement a “factual, substantive 9/11 curriculum.”
“A moment of silence is not an education,” AFL President Gene Hamilton explained.
The organization, co-founded by current White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, unveiled the toolkit after objecting to 9/11-related lesson plans in New York, California, New Jersey, and Virginia.
In New York, AFL reported, the city’s education department spent more than $1 million between 2012 and 2026 on contracts with Bridging Cultures Group, which provided teacher training centered around Islamophobia post-9/11.
Bridging Cultures Group was founded by Debbie Almontaser, who also served as board president of the Muslim Community Network. That organization notoriously lobbied Congress to pull funding from the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum at the site of the World Trade Center, arguing that some of the exhibits “demonize Islam and Muslims.”
In Fairfax County, Va., a six-page district guide tells teachers not to “associate the 9/11 attacks with Islam or Muslims,” or “center the extremists or the acts of extremists” — and does not mention the names of late Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, described by US authorities as the “mastermind” of the hijack plot.
In California, the North Monterey County Unified School District approved a “required ethnic-studies course,” where curriculum steers students to bin Laden’s notorious “Letter to America” for evidence of the United States targeting “Muslim communities.”
In the same course, one lesson states that 9/11 made prejudice against Arab and Muslim Americans “more obvious and shameless.”
Additionally, AFL found that the National Education Association’s 2025 policy handbook contains no reference to 9/11, but instead explicitly states support for transgender students’ access to preferred bathrooms and locker rooms, and “gender-affirming health care.”
“Parents must therefore take the lead in teaching American history to their children,” the toolkit states. “We must not let our history be eradicated, censored, or rewritten by those with an ideological agenda.”
