After 9/11 class debate, mobile museum with WTC artifcacts makes stop at UNC

A month after a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill complained about the content of a course focused on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, artifacts from the World Trade Center are on display at the Chapel Hill campus.

Posted 5:21 p.m. Sep 22, 2015 — Updated 2:34 a.m. Aug 23, 2021

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A month after a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill complained about the content of a course focused on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, artifacts from the World Trade Center are on display at the Chapel Hill campus.

The Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which is named for a firefighter killed on 9/11, brought its "9/11 Never Forget" mobile museum to UNC's campus this week.

John Hodge, Siller's cousin and the chief operating officer of the foundation, said he decided to come to UNC after learning about the controversy surrounding a "Literature of 9/11" course.

Freshman student Alec Dent wrote an article about the course in August, claiming that the seminar course sympathizes with terrorists.

Hodge said the exhibit is a way for students to learn about the sacrifices of first responders who were called to the World Trade Center towers that day.

"For those touring today, if they walk out with nothing else, I want them to know that on Sept. 11, 2001, red-blooded, true blue Americans walked the face of this earth that day and were true heroes," he said.

UNC Chancellor Carol Folt and several first responders toured the exhibit Tuesday. The museum is in the Hanes lot next to Memorial Hall, and admission is free.

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