Dr. David D. Schein revisits the 25th anniversary of September 11, examining the controversy around New York City’s memorial ceremony, the way schools and universities teach 9/11, the role of al-Qaeda in the attacks, and how America can discuss terrorism while protecting religious freedom.
Twenty-five years after September 11, the question is no longer only how Americans remember the attacks.
It is also how we explain them to generations who were not alive when they happened.
In this Saving America postscript, Dr. David D. Schein returns to the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and examines two separate debates: the public reaction to a viral moment involving New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Ground Zero memorial, and the larger argument over how schools and universities should teach September 11.
A short video from the 25th-anniversary ceremony circulated widely online and showed Mayor Mamdani and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez smiling during the event. Critics argued that the moment was inappropriate during a solemn memorial.
The interpretation of the clip, however, has been disputed. Because the short video does not establish what was being said at that moment, it is safer to distinguish the visible conduct from claims about what the two officials were reacting to.
The broader question raised in this episode is one of public conduct: what level of solemnity should Americans expect from elected officials during a memorial for nearly 3,000 people who were killed?
That discussion should also be viewed alongside Mayor Mamdani’s official actions ahead of the anniversary. His administration designated September 11 as a citywide Day of Remembrance and Service and announced updated continuity and emergency-preparedness measures.
The historical foundation is not in dispute.
The FBI identifies 19 hijackers trained by al-Qaeda as the men who seized and crashed the four airplanes on September 11, 2001. Nearly 3,000 people died.
Students should understand who carried out the attacks, what happened at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and aboard Flight 93, and the enormous human cost to victims, families and first responders.
For Dr. Schein, the harder question is what emphasis schools should place on the years that followed.
The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education operates a curriculum called Teaching Beyond September 11th.
The program focuses primarily on the longer-term consequences of 9/11, including Islamophobia and anti-Muslim discrimination, surveillance, civil liberties, immigration, war, media representation and other political and social effects.
Importantly, Penn’s current description also says the curriculum is intended to complement, not replace, instruction about the attacks themselves.
Penn specifically states that students need a clear account of the attacks, the victims and first responders, the immediate national and international response, and the culpability of al-Qaeda under Osama bin Laden.
That clarification matters because it changes the nature of the debate.
The question is not whether students should learn who carried out 9/11. Penn says they should.
The real disagreement is about how much emphasis should be placed on the attack itself versus the political, military and social consequences that followed.
Another theme in the episode is the relationship between terrorism and religious freedom.
It is historically accurate to say that al-Qaeda carried out the September 11 attacks and that the organization used an extremist Islamist ideology to justify violence.
That does not make Muslims generally responsible for terrorism.
The United States can teach accurately about al-Qaeda, Islamist extremism and terrorism while also protecting the constitutional rights and religious freedom of peaceful Muslims.
Those principles are not mutually exclusive.
Historical accuracy requires specificity. It is possible to identify the organization, perpetrators and ideology connected to a terrorist attack without assigning collective guilt to millions of people who had nothing to do with it.
Most students in American classrooms today have no personal memory of September 11.
For them, 9/11 is already history.
That gives educators a difficult responsibility.
A good lesson should explain what happened, who carried it out, who was harmed, why the attacks mattered, how the United States responded, and what political and social consequences followed.
Reducing the lesson to only one part of that story leaves students without the context needed to understand the others.
This episode follows Dr. Schein’s earlier 25th-anniversary special, 25 Years After 9/11: I Saw the Pentagon Smoke and Remember How America Came Together, which focuses on his personal experience in the Washington area on September 11 and the national unity that followed.
For additional context on the long-term foreign-policy consequences of 9/11, see Afghanistan Policy Failures and the Question of Responsibility.
DDSA has also examined broader disputes over schools, universities and political ideology in Saving America from Woke Education.
Twenty-five years after the attacks, Americans can disagree about curriculum, foreign policy, civil liberties, immigration, religion and the political consequences of 9/11.
But the factual foundation should remain clear.
Nineteen al-Qaeda-trained hijackers carried out the attacks. Nearly 3,000 people died. The attacks changed American national security, foreign policy and public life for decades.
The challenge for educators and public institutions is to teach both the event and its aftermath with enough precision that students can understand the history without confusing terrorists with an entire religion or reducing the consequences of 9/11 to a single political narrative.
Watch the full Saving America special
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