In the days leading up to the tragic anniversary of 9/11, students at Eastlake High School in Sammamish, Washington, planned to conduct a remembrance event in honor of those who lost their lives during the attacks. Naturally, many students allegedly planned to wear red, white, and blue attire to show unity in their respect for the victims. The gesture appeared harmless enough, especially during a day of mourning for so many Americans that had family members or family friends involved in the attacks.
According to e-mails obtained by local talk show host Jason Rantz, school administrators decided to forcefully intervene and cancel the planned event, with the principal commenting that the event could “unintentionally cause offense to some who see it differently.” Fears about the politicization of 9/11 over the years have come true at both the national and local levels. Somehow, the left has made woke browbeating the topic when it comes to this day of remembrance. While so many Americans expected the mainstream media to go as low as they did on the anniversary, there was a sense that local communities could abstain from the politicization of such a tragic anniversary without the poison of toxic discourse the media revels in daily.
Just before the football game where the event was planned, Eastlake High School administrators announced the cancellation. Students were notified just a day before the event that the school would not sanction their attire and display of unity at the game. They were told that the colors of the American flag were seen as racially insensitive, perhaps offending those who associate the American flag with undesirable traits and values. For some of these people, their political beliefs have become their religion, and any support for the country is viewed as an attack on their belief system. Rather than understand the nuances between wearing red, white, and blue during a memorial event and wearing them at a political protest, Eastlake High School decided that the victims of 9/11 weren’t worth commemorating by students who hadn’t been born when they happened.
American culture changed radically on September 11, 2001, and future Americans would likely appreciate the exposure to the reality of what took place that day. If anything, keeping the history of that day’s infamous events alive in the minds of America’s youth would teach a valuable lesson to hundreds of students about their country’s history. From a politicized point of view, it’s clear that the school staff at Eastlake sought to tarnish the events of 9/11 with the unrelated issues of today. Although there is a sizeable faction of conservatives who believe that entire schools and universities are becoming inherently more liberal, research has shown that the lack of political diversity in school administrators is more troublesome than the lack of this diversity among teachers and professors. On Tuesday, September 14, the principal of Eastlake sent an e-mail to all parents and students accepting responsibility for the cancellation of the commemoration event. In response to the blowback, school administrators refused to expand on specific students or groups of people who would be offended by the proposed event. They acknowledged that they had failed to properly communicate with students about the significance of such an event and whether any students would have had a problem with the plan. The follow-up from the principal was responsible in light of the community backlash to the staff’s unilateral action that day. However, one might ask why such measures were even necessary in the first place.
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