Twenty-five years after 9/11, remembering is not enough

OPINION:

After 9/11, America was the most unified it had been in generations. Flags flew from every porch and school, and business marquees displayed “God Bless America,” something that would be forbidden today for its religious content.

College campuses were overwhelmingly patriotic. Firefighters, police and military were honored everywhere. “Never Forget” became a national creed.

For months, even years, Americans saw themselves as one people united against an enemy that had murdered thousands of innocent civilians. There was a surge of patriotism, resolve and willingness to defend the country, especially among young men. My own son was 13 at the time and later decided to apply to the Air Force Academy because he wanted to fight for and protect our country. The post‑9/11 generation ran toward service.

Today’s campus protests supporting Hamas are a stark reversal.

Like al Qaeda, which perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, Hamas is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization responsible for severe harm, loss of life and human rights violations, including the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of civilians.

Yet on American campuses, students chant slogans originating from Hamas. Some openly praise the Oct. 7 attacks. Jewish students report harassment and fear. American flags are torn down or burned. This is not the America of Sept. 12, 2001.

Many Americans are wondering how a generation raised in the shadow of that attack moved so far from patriotism to open sympathy for Islamic terrorist groups. Well, look no further than the taxpayer-funded government education system.

For years, radical ideologies have been embedded in classrooms: Marxist theories, anti‑American propaganda and a steady erosion of American founding principles. Today, some students, often influenced by radicalized academic narratives, cannot distinguish between legitimate political debate and support for a terrorist organization.

This cultural shift is also evident in the treatment of law enforcement. In the years since 9/11, the respect once shown to law enforcement has collapsed. It is no longer just about “defunding the police.”

Officers have been demonized as oppressors, portrayed as inherently racist, stripped of the tools they need to do their jobs and publicly shamed by activists and media alike. School districts have removed resource officers; curricula aligned with diversity, equity and inclusion teach students to distrust police; and radicalized narratives cast criminals as victims while vilifying those who protect our communities.

The result is predictable: rising crime, collapsing recruitment and a generation of young people conditioned to resent the very people who keep them safe.

It is not just on college campuses. Antisemitism and support for terrorist organizations are also emerging in K‑12 government schools. This is a direct result of teachers trained in and curriculum laced with the DEI worldview, a Marxist, critical-theory-based philosophy that views the world through the lens of the oppressed versus the oppressor.

Students sympathetic to terrorist organizations are taught that Palestinians are oppressed and the Jewish people are oppressors. From October 2023 through July 2026, there were at least 250 antisemitic and anti‑Israel incidents in New York City public schools, according to United Jewish Teachers, a New York City public school educator advocacy group.

Defending Education reports that the Democratic Socialists of America has “infected every level of K‑12 schools.” Partnering with National Black Lives Matter at School, DSA is promoting the Palestine Solidarity Working Group’s Educator for Palestine Series titled “Learning Toward Liberation: Rooting Our Pedagogy of Palestine in Humanity and Justice!”

The report includes a flyer quoting a Palestinian revolutionary: “The Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary, wherever he is, as a cause of the exploited and oppressed masses in our era.”

Twenty‑five years ago, Americans united against terrorism. Today, some of our own students chant in support of it, a devastating sign of how far our culture and classrooms have fallen. This did not happen by accident. It is the result of years of taxpayer‑funded indoctrination that teaches children to resent their country, distrust its institutions and sympathize with extremist movements.

As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, remembering is not enough. We must end the ideological indoctrination in government schools, dismantle the extremist frameworks embedded in teacher training and curriculum, and stop funding the radicalization of children with our tax dollars.

Parents cannot wait for bureaucracies to fix themselves. They must protect their children now by getting them out of government‑run schools and into environments that teach truth, liberty and American principles. The future of our nation depends on whether we have the courage to confront what is happening in our classrooms and reclaim them for the next generation.

• Sheri Few is the founder and president of United States Parents Involved in Education, a coalition that aims to end the U.S. Department of Education and all federal education mandates.