GEITNER SIMMONS writes about the NEA’s cries of racism over criticism of its 9/11 curriculum. Excerpt:

Remarkable. Teachers, she claims, can’t talk about the Islamic hatred and evil that fueled the 9/11 attacks because hatred and evil once manifested themselves, undeniably, in this country through the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow.

On the contrary, this situation presents teachers with an opportunity to make vital distinctions.

American society, students should be told, now openly acknowledges the injustices and horrors of slavery and Jim Crow. Indeed, powerful legal mechanisms, embedded in the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent, have been put in place to prevent their reappearance. America, in other words, have striven mightily, after a civil war in the 19th century and social tumult in the 20th, to move beyond the moral blindness of the past. . . .

These are the real nuances that teachers ought to sharing with their students. How revealing that the NEA and like-minded thinkers want to pre-empt such needed discussions in the nation’s classrooms.

Indeed. I suppose it’s also worth noting that the NEA’s response (which Simmons calls “demagogic”) to criticisms of the 9/11 curriculum gives the lie to claims that the curriculum did not really reflect the views of the NEA.