Campuses will not forget 9/11

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Flags and prayers will be part of memorials planned tomorrow at colleges and universities across the country to remember the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Students at more than 150 campuses will participate in the Young America's Foundation's "9/11 Never Forget Project."

Among the projects planned at several schools are the creation of memorials featuring 3,000 small flags, each flag representing one of those killed by the terrorist hijackers who destroyed the World Trade Center in New York, hit the Pentagon and crashed a fourth commercial jetliner in Pennsylvania.

YAF officials say the memorial project was begun in part as a response to professors at several campuses who made statements about the September 11 attacks that were "were hostile to basic American patriotism."

The conservative group cited several examples, including an opinion column — published in the Houston Chronicle days after the attacks — by University of Texas journalism professor Robert Jensen, who said the hijackings were "no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism — the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes — that the U.S. government committed during my lifetime."

Among the campus speakers whom YAF is sponsoring in conjunction with the anniversary is decorated Iraq war veteran Lt. Col. Scott Rutter, who will speak at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Earl Johnson, who escaped from the 51st floor of the trade center's North Tower and is author of the book "Stairwell to Heaven: A 9-11 World Trade Center Survivor's Story of Escape, Heroism ... and Family."

YAF is distributing posters that include photos of the trade center towers with smoke billowing from them after the attacks. Foundation spokesman Jason Mattera said the group was emphasizing the Islamist nature of the continuing terror threat, which he said liberals have sought to ignore.

"The left's allegiance to moral relativism blinds them to the clear-cut fact that radical Islamic thugs have declared war against the United States and her allies," Mr. Mattera said. "Liberals still don't get the concept of pure evil."