Ripon College in Wisconsin has decided that a student-led Sept. 11 memorial cannot take place on campus because it might offend Muslim students.
The small liberal arts college cited complaints filed during last year’s Sept. 11 memorial project, part of Young America’s Foundation’s iconic patriotism initiative, which takes place on campuses from UCLA to Tufts University every year. (Washington Examiner)
The school’s Bias Protocol Board said the project creates an “environment” where “students from a Muslim background would feel singled out and/or harassed.” As a result, Ripon students will not be allowed to hang flyers as part of their vigil to remember the victims of Sept. 11.
According to YAF, administrators claimed that one of their objections is “because radical Islamist terrorism ‘represents a small percentage of the terrorist attacks that happened to this country, and they don’t represent the full gamut, and they show a very small picture of a specific religion or nationality instead of the larger viewpoint.’”
“This attempt by Ripon College’s ‘bias protocol board’ to sanitize the truth out of remembering the anniversary of September 11 proves the necessity of YAF’s iconic 9/11: Never Forget Project, as well as the need for bold YAF activists,” Young America’s Foundation Spokesman Spencer Brown told Red Alert Politics. “YAF’s leadership in creating meaningful memorials on this important date in our nation’s history ensures that the rising generation remembers the 2,977 innocent lives lost. The administrators’ reliance on feelings rather than facts betrays their intention to cower from the truth rather than highlight the scourge of radical Islamist terror for what it is: evil.”
The Ripon handbook states that the college is “committed to the free speech and open exchange of ideas and views, as reflected in the institution’s Core Values” but this commitment “requires the confrontation of challenging issues in the context of civil discourse and intellectual inquiry.” Students can combat bias by “participating in on-campus programming around multiculturalism, diversity and social justice.”
Ripon College boasts of its programming to highlight Internation Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, LGBT History Month, and Culture Week – yet justifies banning a memorial honoring the lives lost in the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil.
AAN Staff
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