A teacher guide in Fairfax County, Virginia, is being blasted for its tone-deaf approach to discussing the 9/11 terrorist attacks with students.
The six-page instructional guide, “25th Anniversary and Commemoration of 9/11,” was distributed to teachers and focuses more on shielding students from ‘anti-Muslim racism’ than covering the history of the murder of almost 3,000 people on American soil by Islamists.
It is especially galling as the district sits just miles from where a hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon.
A digital content analysis reveals that about half of the 1,740-word document is devoted to tips for creating “safe spaces for Muslim and Middle Eastern students,” about 15% spells out specific 9/11 instruction and the rest of the document tip-toes around managing “emotional responses” to the lesson.
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Meanwhile, it has 30 references to Islam, “Muslim families,” “Muslim students,” “anti-Muslim racism,” “anti-Middle Eastern” rhetoric, “Islamophobic rhetoric” and “Middle Eastern students” and families. It includes a bulleted list of “critical considerations” to challenge anti-Muslim bias.
The curriculum guidance speaks to a wider tension about how the 9/11 attacks are described by influential figures from teachers, journalists and politicians to social media influencers as a network of powerful Muslim organizations have built educational programs over the past 25 years downplaying discussions about the extremist interpretations of Islam that motivated al Qaeda and the 19 hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares slammed the guide, noting, “Fairfax County Public Schools ordered teachers to ‘leverage a critical lens’ when discussing 9/11.”
“If they want to provide the proper ‘critical lens’ on 9/11, explain to students the horror of watching 3,000 fellow Americans being executed on live television for the sole crime of being American—including the loved ones of many of your students.”
“Never Forget.”
Fairfax County Public Schools ordered teachers to “leverage a critical lens” when discussing 9/11.
If they want to provide the proper “critical lens” on 9/11, explain to students the horror of watching 3,000 fellow Americans being executed on live television for the sole crime… pic.twitter.com/Cxwauji6Da
— Jason Miyares (@JasonMiyaresVA) September 11, 2026
Former Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark also blasted the revisionist history.
“I wake up at 430 am on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 — a day when I was a young man who had been appointed at DOJ scarcely a month before and who left Main Justice that day due to an evacuation order — only to first find the county where I have lived in Virginia engaged in this ‘educational nonsense.”
“It’s the worst kind of revisionist history.”
“And it’s the direct product of the immigration policies of Obama and Biden abetted by the laxity of Bush 43 in the same area.”
“It’s proof of national insanity and the depths to which Virginia, once a jewel of the Republic and testament to the healing power of national unity in the wake of the Civil War, has fallen, including through the rise of CIA Governor Spanberger.”
“I’m sure like in the picture below, she is applauding Fairfax County, VA’s move here. Applauding the debasement of the country, instead of sternly remembering what happened to us 25 years ago in New York, in Pennsylvania, and in Virginia itself.”
I wake up at 430 am on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 — a day when I was a young man who had been appointed at DOJ scarcely a month before and who left Main Justice that day due to an evacuation order — only to first find the county where I have lived in Virginia engaged in this… https://t.co/XZx24Em1jV pic.twitter.com/bQfM3OoDkO
— Jeff Clark (@JeffClarkUS) September 11, 2026
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