Tipsheet

Holocaust Lessons Dropped To Avoid Offending Muslim Students

You know, because some of their belief systems include Holocaust denial, and we should be sensitive to that.

Also, the Crusades are a problem:

The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework.

The report said teachers feared confronting 'anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils'.

It added: "In another department, the Holocaust was taught despite anti-Semitic sentiment among some pupils.

"But the same department deliberately avoided teaching the Crusades at Key Stage 3 (11- to 14-year-olds) because their balanced treatment of the topic would have challenged what was taught in some local mosques."

A third school found itself 'strongly challenged by some Christian parents for their treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict-and the history of the state of Israel that did not accord with the teachings of their denomination'.

And, in case anyone's wondering what wacky right-wing organization did the study, not so fast. It was the British government's Department for Education and Skills, which unless I miss my guess, is probably one of the more liberal-dominated departments in the government.