Are We Now Apologizing for Teaching About the Holocaust

The William Diamond Middle School in Lexington, MA, is, according to U.S. News and World Reports, the second-best-performing middle school in Massachusetts. Its grounds are immaculate, its student body prosperous, and it performs exceptionally well in math instruction—#1 in the state—and ranks 5th overall in reading scores. 

As part of its curriculum, it teaches about the Holocaust, as one would imagine many schools do, and these days that is a serious problem for some of the students. 

You’ll never guess who. 

It’s terrible if unsurprising that Arab and Muslim parents complained about a Holocaust lesson. Much worse that a US school apologised and offered to create an ecumenical curriculum, which is inherently a lie – nothing like what was done to the Jews has been done to anybody else. https://t.co/E4VuwQETBl

— Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) June 22, 2026

Right on cue, Arab and Muslim students complained to the administration that having to learn about the atrocities committed against the Jews made them feel unsafe and unheard, whatever that means. “Unsafe” and “unheard” are just the sort of terms used in our faux-therapeutic establishment; they are nothing more than jargon used by the DEI crowd to say “I demand that you bow to me!”

How, exactly, teaching about a historical event of tremendous significance erases the history of other historical events is unclear to me, and exactly which historical events that Muslims are complaining have been erased is as well. 

We have learned from speaking to some of your families that the experience did not feel that way to some of you. Some of you felt unseen. Some of you felt like your own history, your identity, or your community was left out or erased. Some of you left that session feeling less safe, not more. We have heard this from families, and we believe you.

We are sorry. Not because the topic was too hard; hard conversations are part of growing up and part of what we do here at Diamond. We are sorry because every one of you deserves to walk into this school and feel that who you are matters – Arab students; Jewish students; Lebanese students; Muslim students; Palestinian students – every student. And in this case, we missed the mark and did not achieve what we hoped to do.

How, exactly, does learning about the Holocaust make Muslims feel “unsafe?” Did the words hurt you, Mohammad? Did reality slapping you in the face make you feel bad? 

It’s not like they were forced to learn about the nearly 80 years of terrorism perpetrated by Muslims against the Jews since the founding of Israel. The suicide bombings, the invasions, the hijackings, the Munich Olympics. October 7th. 

I would bet my bottom dollar that they were not asked to confront the fact that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem collaborated with Hitler, and if they did, I’m not sure why it would be inappropriate for them to learn about that fact. 

Rather than defending an obviously important part of the curriculum, the principal of William Diamond Middle School apologized to his Muslim students and their parents and promised that they would find some less particular examples to teach tolerance. 

Perhaps they should include the Armenian genocide, in which as many as 1.5 million Christians were killed by the Muslim Ottomans. 

Yeah, I think that might make them feel “included” and “seen.” Perhaps, though, not “safe.”

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