Jonathan Williams/News editor

Parts of the Linfield campus have taken home to large wooden walls with messages related to repercussions from September 11, 2001 painted on them.

Students from Associate professor of English Reshmi Dutt-Ballestadt’s Post 9/11 Literature class created these walls, as the students felt empowered to share what they had learned with the Linfield community.

Dutt-Ballerstadt helped students coin the title  “Wall on Terror” as a spin off from the well-known War on Terror term that has become common in the U.S.

“We wanted to share what we had learned from Reshmi’s class with the Linfield community because there is more that meets the eye with events from 9/11,” Sophomore and student in the class Emma Ballantyne said.

The walls presented information about 9/11 as well as  numbers that showed fatalities.

The class has taught students to look at the events that occurred from a different lens than they normally would.

The class has proved to students through literary texts that there are racist norms that have become ingrained in the minds of U.S. residents.

There is a stigma that if you see a dark skinned man with a beard in New York City he could be a terrorist.

The class exposed to students that government officials stalked Muslims in New York and around the United States to their Mosques to question them, as well as to track them.

The walls that were put up on campus were to get a reaction from students based on the information that is presented on the walls.

Students in the class didn’t want to be thought of as pushy towards students by setting up a booth with information, causing them to construct walls with information on them instead.

The class wanted to expose what they had learned from class with Linfield because they felt it was worth revealing nuances that have risen because of 9/11.

“Since we have gotten past the trauma, doesn’t mean everything has gone away,” senior and student in the classDawn Wyruchowski said.

The students wanted to bring back the humanity that most people forget about when they think of 9/11.

The soldiers that are fighting in Middle East are people to, but because there are so many of them, and deaths of soldiers are broadcast in the media often, U.S. residents forget that the soldiers are people too who have family, and people that love them.

Sophomores Camille Weber and Conner Purnell, along with junior Jessie Johnston, will present information that they have learned from the class at 4:30 p.m. Monday, May 19, in Ice Auditorium for the final PLACE talk of the year: “Legacies of War and the Liberal Arts: Learning from Difference.”

The students will be speaking along with peers from other classes that are centered around and connect to the current PLACE theme.

Jonathan Williams can be reached at [email protected]