Half of Fairfax County Public Schools' 1,740-word 9/11 anniversary teacher guide is devoted to creating safe spaces for Muslim and Middle Eastern students, according to a digital content analysis. Only 15% covers specific instruction about the September 11 attacks. Retired Navy Vice Admiral Lou Crenshaw, who was inside the Pentagon when it was struck, called the approach "a vanilla way to do things" and said it leaves students without a reckoning with what actually happened.
The six-page document, titled "25th Anniversary and Commemoration of 9/11" and distributed to teachers, explicitly instructs educators not to associate the attacks with Islam or Muslims and not to center "the extremists or the acts of the extremists." The district sits a few miles from the Pentagon and serves many military-connected families.
The document count
| Content category | Approximate share of 1,740 words |
|---|---|
| Safe spaces for Muslim and Middle Eastern students | ~50% |
| Specific 9/11 instruction | ~15% |
| Emotional-response management | remainder |
The text contains 30 references to Islam, Muslim families, Muslim students, anti-Muslim racism, Islamophobic rhetoric, and related terms. Military families appear three times. First responders appear once.
Crenshaw, stationed on the fourth floor of the Pentagon's E Ring on the morning of September 11 and serving in the Navy from 1974 to 2007, said the guide allows everyone to feel comfortable but does not deliver what he described as a sense of the gravity and urgency of the event. He argued teachers can explain that al-Qaeda used an extremist interpretation of Islam to justify the attacks without collectively blaming Muslim students. "They certainly do not espouse any of the values that we know of Islam worldwide," he said of al-Qaeda.
In a statement provided to Fox News Digital, Fairfax County Public Schools said the school community has "a deeply personal connection to September 11 because of our proximity to the Pentagon and the many military-connected families we serve." The district acknowledged the nearly 3,000 people killed, including 184 at the Pentagon, and said it remains committed to an inclusive environment.
New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch, speaking Thursday, called for "moral clarity," drawing a direct line between the terrorists who carried out the attacks and the first responders who ran in. Canada's CBC reversed guidance last month that had discouraged journalists from calling the events a "terrorist attack," following public backlash.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who took credit for planning the attacks, awaits trial at Guantanamo Bay.