EXCLUSIVE: America First Legal (AFL) has launched an investigation into Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia after Fox News Digital first exposed controversial guidance for teaching the 9/11 terrorist attacks, seeking to determine who was responsible for developing instructions that tell teachers not to "center the extremists or the acts of the extremists." The conservative legal group announced the investigation after Fox News Digital first reported on the FCPS guide ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks. The district's guidance tells teachers not to "associate the 9/11 attacks with Islam or Muslims" or "center the extremists or the acts of the extremists." LIBERAL VIRGINIA SCHOOL DISTRICT: DON'T LINK 9/11 TERROR ATTACKS TO 'ISLAM or MUSLIMS' "We wanna know where this comes from. We wanna know who the school is working with to develop these guidances," America First Legal senior counsel Ian Prior told Fox News Digital.
Prior said AFL is seeking to examine how FCPS arrived at the guidance and whether any outside organizations participated in its development, but acknowledged AFL has not yet determined whether that occurred. "We're still seeking to determine how far this goes," Prior said. "That's why we're investigating so that we can get to the bottom of it." The investigation was directly prompted by Fox News Digital's reporting, Prior said.
CBC RELEASES POLICY CHANGE AFTER CONTROVERSY ABOUT REFUSING TO REFER TO 9/11 AS ‘TERRORIST ATTACKS’ "The reason why we're investigating now is because this was just reported," he said, adding that AFL saw the report "just like everybody else" and wanted to determine who FCPS was working with when the guidance was developed. In announcing its investigation, AFL is accusing the school district of attempting to "sanitize history" and calling for "full transparency regarding who is responsible" for the guidance. The group's announcement directs readers to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, though the two-page release itself does not detail the records sought.
The six-page FCPS guide, titled "25th Anniversary and Commemoration of 9/11," was published Aug. 27 and edited Aug. 31. It directs teachers who choose to commemorate the attacks to carefully follow the district's guidance and use only instructional resources available through the district's Atlas site. FCPS tells educators that lessons about the attacks can unintentionally stigmatize Muslim and Middle Eastern students and instructs teachers to prepare for anti-Muslim rhetoric, create "safe spaces" for Muslim and Middle Eastern students and challenge expressions of bias.
A GENERATION CANNOT REMEMBER 9/11. WE HAVE A DUTY TO MAKE SURE THEY LEARN Fairfax County Public Schools did not directly answer Fox News Digital's questions about who authored and approved the guidance, whether outside organizations were involved in its development or whether the district has made or considered changes to the document. The district referred Fox News Digital to a statement published on Sept. 11.
In that statement, Superintendent Michelle Reid said FCPS "unequivocally condemn[s]" the 9/11 terrorist attacks and emphasized the district's connection to the Pentagon, military families, first responders and survivors. The statement also said FCPS was "reviewing our materials" in response to community feedback, while maintaining that "the actions of terrorists should not define the entirety of any faith, culture, or community." FCPS's Sept. 11 statement provides some information about how the materials were reviewed, but does not identify who authored the six-page guide or who approved its final language. Prior argued that schools can teach students about the ideology that motivated the Sept. 11 terrorists without assigning collective responsibility to Muslims.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
