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Fairfax County 9/11 guide allocates half its words to Muslim safe spaces, 15% to the attacks themselves

9/10/2026

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.