By Elizabeth Smislova

Nothing binds a nation together more than shared tragedy — millions of hearts breaking thousands of miles apart for the same calamitous reason. September 11, 2001 is the nightmare that all Americans wish never happened. Unfortunately, it did, and now we are forced to make some sense out of the devastation thrust upon us. America erected a higher building in honor of the two that were cruelly and suddenly demolished, which quickly became an international symbol of survival and bravery.

Fourteen years later, many have voiced their objections to American colleges teaching classes with terrorist sympathies at their cores. According to Paul Sperry, writer for The New York Post, the University of North Carolina has a course that is “brainwash[ing] students into believing 9/11 was our fault.”

The class is taught by Neel Ahuja, the UNC associate English professor, who says “Abu Zubaydah’s torture may be interpreted as simply one more example of the necropower of U.S. imperialism, the power to coerce and kill targeted populations.”

UNC has stood out in the media for such a perceived anti-patriotic class, but it is certainly not alone in its unique, new addition to its curriculum. Through literature several other new college courses teach students compassion towards the same Islamic terrorists responsible for 9/11. By reading documents such as “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” professors portray terrorism as an enigma to understand, not mourn or judge. Interestingly, the syllabi rarely contain a set time to delve into the experiences of the over 3,000 Americans murdered in the attacks, their loved ones and those who bravely responded to the attacks. If schools have a newfound quest for diversity of perspectives in their curriculums, it does not make sense to talk about the attacker without also considering the victims. This brings up a new point, though, that perhaps neither side is without both blame and scars.

In response to the conversation of different stances, Nicholas Tampio, Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University, commented that “for strategic and ethical reasons, it is important to understand one’s enemy’s thinking. The military calls this intelligence. The best way to learn the thinking of one’s enemies is to read primary sources. So it is perfectly appropriate for institutions of higher education to offer courses, for example, on Sayyd Qutb, the Islamic author who inspired al Qaeda. Wouldn’t it have been good for more intelligence agents to have read Signposts, Qutb’s influential manifesto, before 9/11?”

Certainly, it is incredibly beneficial to grasp all positions of an issue, but some still argue that perhaps it is the commiseration with the terrorists that makes the courses contentious.

The protests also make the argument that students in college now were so young in 2001 that they will not understand what it was like to experience such horror firsthand. Therefore, the students might be too quick to find compassion for those who may not deserve it in this increasingly liberal society.

In another light, a wave of interest in new viewpoints of an incredible monument in America’s history could further proclaim this country’s battle cry for freedom and understanding. These new courses present controversies new to this generation because they contain stories of personal ties and a level of grief that creates a barrier of hurt to forgiveness.
As a disclaimer, many college students were indeed young at the time of 9/11, and though they may not have fully comprehended what was happening at the time, they do have memories of the event. They also do not remember boarding a plane without taking off their shoes or attending professional sporting events without having their bags checked. The world of college students has always contained the fear of another attack. They know that as they take the subway or attend a public gathering, their freedom, once treated as a right, now a privilege, is at risk. We are a generation that wants to understand the risks as we balance our independence against the requirements of security precautions.

Though the media may present these classes themselves as a problem, their popularity might sway people to think they are not. Kelly Heyboer, writer for NJ Advance Media, wrote that these courses include “everything from the origin of the World Trade Center to the history of terrorism and the reasons behind the war in Iraq.”

Examples include “The Contemporary American: The 10th Anniversary of 9/11,” an American Studies class at Rutgers University and “Conflict and Terrorism in the Modern Middle East” at Princeton University. Fairleigh Dickinson University teaches students to fight terrorism in an eighteen credit certificate in Homeland Security Studies. Such classes fill up fast because they cover a modern issue to which some students are personally attracted. Both students and teachers go into the course knowing the difficulty and weight of the subject.

Despite the debate over the classes’ apparent patriotism, one point reigns true. It is impressive that young people are so eager to learn about their history and take it upon themselves to genuinely understand what took place. This generation may be many things, but it is not afraid.