A conservative legal organization is urging parents to scrutinize school curricula regarding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, alleging a trend of "ideological rewriting of American history." America First Legal (AFL) released a "Parent Toolkit" on Friday, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the tragedy, advocating for comprehensive education that includes details about Al Qaeda, its Islamist ideology, and perceived failures in U.S. immigration and visa systems that allowed the 19 hijackers to enter the country.
The toolkit provides parents with template letters to request lesson plans and instructional materials from schools and external organizations. It also includes a demand for schools to implement a "factual, substantive 9/11 curriculum," with AFL President Gene Hamilton stating, "A moment of silence is not an education."
AFL, co-founded by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, has raised objections to 9/11-related lesson plans in New York, California, New Jersey, and Virginia. The organization reported that New York City's education department spent over $1 million between 2012 and 2026 on contracts with Bridging Cultures Group. This group, founded by Debbie Almontaser, provided teacher training focused on Islamophobia post-9/11. Almontaser's Muslim Community Network had previously lobbied Congress to defund the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum, arguing that some exhibits "demonize Islam and Muslims."
In Fairfax County, Virginia, a district guide reportedly advises teachers not to associate the 9/11 attacks with Islam or Muslims, nor to "center the extremists or the acts of extremists." The guide also omits the names of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who U.S. authorities identified as the plot's mastermind.
California's North Monterey County Unified School District, according to AFL, includes a "required ethnic-studies course" that directs students to bin Laden's "Letter to America." The curriculum allegedly uses this letter as evidence of the United States targeting "Muslim communities." The same course reportedly states that 9/11 made prejudice against Arab and Muslim Americans "more obvious and shameless."
Additionally, AFL noted that the National Education Association's 2025 policy handbook does not reference 9/11, but instead supports 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 AFL toolkit states. "We must not let our history be eradicated, censored, or rewritten by those with an ideological agenda."