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On the morning of September 11, Debbie Rizzo, the Republican candidate for Connecticut’s 2nd House District, posted a question: when Democrats passed Public Act 26-1 on July 1, 2026 — the law directing the State Board of Education to develop and encourage Islamic and Arab studies materials — did they think about the nearly 3,000 people murdered by Islamic extremists 25 years earlier?
She attached a photo of the Twin Towers and tagged Gov. Ned Lamont, Sen. Julie Kushner, and the two local House Democrats who represent the area in which she is running, Raghib Allie-Brennan and Farley Santos.
Within hours, the Danbury and Bethel Democratic committees responded. Not by defending the statute, but by declaring the question itself “vile,” “reckless,” and “bigoted.”
Both posts insisted Rizzo had claimed the state “mandated” that schools “teach Islam,” then spent the rest of the thread explaining that PA 26-1 only requires the state to make materials available and encourage districts to use them.
Rizzo wrote the same thing The Centinal has been reporting: the law "requires the CT State Board of Education to develop curriculum on Islamic studies."
Section 24 of the omnibus education bill added “Islamic and Arab studies” to an existing list of topics the State Board of Education must promote — Holocaust education, African American studies, Puerto Rican and Latino studies, Native American studies, and Asian American and Pacific Islander studies. There is no dedicated funding. There is no requirement that any district actually teach it. It's optional, at least for now.
CAIR-CT has said it will work with the State Department of Education to ensure the curriculum is “accurate” and does not introduce “new biases.” Note that the group’s own recommended classroom resources define jihad first as an internal spiritual struggle, treat terrorism as something “anti-Muslim groups” exaggerate by cherry-picking the Quran, and fold in “collective liberation” and Black Lives Matter at School talking points.
In August, CAIR-CT issued a “Back to School” resource guide that focused more on political activism than student support. The guide included a 9/11 unit which referenced the New Jersey CAIR curriculum materials.
Screenshots of the New Jersey CAIR curriculum obtained by The New York Post showed a page that claimed the horrific 9/11 attacks were "masterminded not by Islamic terrorists but a 'group self-identifying as Al Qaeda hailing from the mountains of Afghanistan'."
The material has since been deleted, but it also told students that the attacks were “in response to America’s support of Israel,” the Gulf War, and the U.S. military presence in the Middle East. They say “Islam does not advocate for violence” and any misconception that it does needs to be corrected. They describe post-9/11 policy as “state-sponsored Islamophobia,” claim the Patriot Act gave the government “full authority to surveil Muslims,” and put the Global War on Terror’s civilian death toll at “over 800,000.” Elementary students are told a terrorist is really “much like a bully.” High school resource lists featured Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America.”
While Florida and Texas have already designated CAIR a terrorist organization under state law, Connecticut Democrats instead appear to have welcomed them into the curriculum development process.
The same voices lecturing Rizzo about “painting an entire religion with the brush of terrorism” have spent years treating Christian expression in public schools as a constitutional crisis. Remember when a Connecticut teacher was ordered to remove a small crucifix from her workspace?
Nobody serious thinks 2 billion Muslims planned 9/11. Rizzo did not say they did. She noted that the attackers were Islamic extremists and asked whether that history registered when lawmakers added a religion-specific curriculum to a bill. The Democrat response was not a defense of the statute’s actual text. It was an attempt to make the anniversary itself off-limits for anyone who notices the double standard.
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