Texas: Students told to call 9/11 terrorists 'freedom fighters'

Lumberton - The 9/11 hijackers, who conducted the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil, should not be called "terrorists" but "freedom fighters,” a teacher told shocked students at one Texas High school.

Students at Lumberton High School were also told to stop referring to the Holocaust as Genocide. Instead they were told to use the term “ethnic cleansing,” Town Hall reported. John Valastro, the superintendent of the Lumberton Independent School District, told Town Hall that the unidentified teacher did absolutely nothing wrong. “What is more dangerous – fear and ignorance or education and understanding?” he asked. “From our standpoint, we are here to educate the kids." Valastro said the teacher involved is a 32-year veteran, who was simply following state teaching guidelines. “I don’t think my freshman-level teacher was trying to politicize radical Islam or anything like that,” he said. “I don’t think our teacher has..., to my knowledge, ever converted a single student to Islam.” But the teachings have sparked outrage among parents, according to the NY Daily News. April LeBlanc told Fox News she felt betrayed by the school district. In particular, she said the school was "saturating these kids in Islam," adding that it was "scary how far they dove into the Islamic faith."

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Students in a Lumberton, Texas high school class were encouraged to don burqas as part of a lesson about understanding different cultural points of view.

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LeBlanc’s 15-year-old daughter, Madelyn, appeared in a photograph of four female students wearing burqas that drew national attention after it surfaced on Facebook. "My biggest thing is not the burka," she told the news station. "That was the key to opening up the rest. [...]It's scary what they taught my daughter. Who's in charge of this?" State Sen. Dan Patrick also said he was "disturbed" by the photograph. He's looking into reports students were told to write about a Washington Post article that blamed Egypt's turmoil on democracy rather than the Muslim Brotherhood. Patrick told Fox: "Parents are very sensitive to any issue that seems to be anti-American - that blames democracy for some sort of trouble in the world." It especially disturbed LeBlanc that the students were told that they could no longer use the terms suicide bomber or terrorist. Instead, they were instructed to use the words “freedom fighters.” “This teacher taught her that a freedom fighter is when they give their life for the Holy War – and that they’re going to go to heaven,” she said. “They were saturating these kids in Islam and my daughter is an American Christian child.” “That made it sound like what they were doing was okay,” she said. But the superintendent defended the lesson. “The whole idea behind this particular lesson – do you call yourself a freedom fighter or Islamic jihadist – or whatever it is you want to be called – you’ve got to put things in perspective,” the superintendent said. “We’re trying to teach the kids to discern for themselves that one thing can be called many different things.” Valastro said it’s important for students to understand context. “We might see it as terrorism, but from the Islamic side they might call it jihadist or freedom fighter,” he said.