and they tend to believe viral e-mails like this one:
viral vicious rumor
There are two main meanings for the abbreviation UK. The most popular throughout the world is United Kingdom, meaning England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as a unit. Here in the states, there's the University of Kentucky, my alma mater.
An e-mail circulating the Internet claimed that a school in the UK (meaning that set of islands north of the rest of Europe) had ceased its Holocaust course because they didn't want to offend Muslims. That led to more e-mails in a awful game of 'Operator' (remember, you tell someone something, then they pass it along, and it ends up garbled at the end?) until someone mistakenly put it in as the university in Kentucky. UK (the university) has been getting thousands of complaints over this.
I am a graduate of UK's history programme and also (get this) minored in Judaic Studies (yes, they have one). One of the classes I took in history was the Holocaust, taught by Jeremy Popkin (who still teaches it). Another was the Arab-Israeli conflict, by a scholar whose main focus was the history of the Middle East. And I had one teacher in Judaic Studies who was raised an Orthodox Jew in New York, was married to an Episcopalian, and was an expert in Arab studies. So I got a little from all sides.
I don't know if Americans are just too American-centric to figure this out, or what. Abbreviations can be tricky. But one, you shouldn't believe everything you're sent (we all know that, right?), and two, you shouldn't go around complaining at the top of your lungs until you check out the facts. For example, go to the Snopes urban legend page and you'll find all sorts of debunked rumours. In fact, it should be the first stop in checking facts about Internet stories. The one on this subject is the Holocaust Teaching Ban.
Oy ve!
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