Introduction
I must assume that most of the people employed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), or otherwise associated with the organization, are not aware of the extent of the corruption that prevails in the national office.
I urge the conscientious people of CAIR and its supporters to seriously consider the credible allegations that have been made by former employees, board members, and others of the Muslim community against the organization, and its failure to address those allegations, especially in the last two years.
Are women second class in Islam? If CAIR-National is any indication, I would have to say yes.
The allegations against CAIR and certain of its representatives include sexual harassment and misconduct, domestic abuse, gender and religious discrimination, union thwarting, undisclosed foreign funding, general mismanagement, harassment and intimidation, pay-outs and cover-ups.
Rather than deal responsibly with these allegations, CAIR-National has instead tried to silence and discredit its former Director of Chapter Development, who has been quite public in her criticisms of CAIR. (Henceforth I will refer to her mainly as the “former employee” but occasionally by her title, Director of Chapter Development.)
In the aftermath of Leila Fadel’s ground-breaking article which dealt with some of those allegations, and which National Public Radio (NPR) published in April of 2021 (which article I will return to shortly), CAIR sought to buy the former employee’s silence. CAIR offered to pay money it owed her in exchange for her signing a “non-disparagement agreement”, by which she would have permanently recanted all of her critical statements about CAIR, including the circumstances which preceded her leaving the organization, in language approved by CAIR. She declined.
The circumstances which preceded her leaving CAIR, by the way, included sexual harassment by CAIR-National Executive Director Nihad Awad, and a warning from him, when she refused to sign away her right to free speech, that CAIR is a “very powerful organization”.
When bribery failed, in May of 2021 CAIR initiated a defamation lawsuit against her.
But CAIR could produce neither evidence of defamation nor evidence of violations of a non-disclosure agreement by the former employee. And so, on January 7, 2022, CAIR withdrew its lawsuit “with prejudice”, meaning it cannot file the same claims again in court. Two weeks later, on January 20, 2022, in an attempt to put the best spin possible on its failed lawsuit CAIR issued a press release that played fast and loose with the facts in order to smear the former employee.
CAIR’s point is clear: if you blow the whistle on us, we will do all we can to make your life miserable, and we will not be constrained by the truth.
The good news is that CAIR did not succeed. The target of its retaliation, like other women who have found the world of CAIR to be toxic and have left out of self-respect, is thriving and succeeding. She recently became the first Muslim elected to office in her hometown.
CAIR’s Tolerance of Sexual Misconduct
CAIR’s chief preoccupation is calling out Islamophobia wherever CAIR perceives it to be, and that’s a lot of places. The Islamophobe card is CAIR’s first and last resort whenever it attempts to discredit any critic. Its January 20, 2022 press release is a shining example. Ironically, its failure to take the allegations against it seriously will likely feed Islamophobia.
The first time I heard of any of these allegations, in the spring of 2020, I was not sure what to make of them, and did not pursue the matter. A year later, on April 15, 2021, I read Leila Fadel ‘s article, which confirmed much of what I had read earlier (see: Civil Rights Org CAIR Accused Of Ignoring Alleged Misconduct : NPR.) NPR is not going to publish allegations against a Muslim organization that are not credible. Fadel has since become a host of Morning Edition.
In the nearly two years since NPR published Fadel’s article, CAIR’s dysfunction has been on full display, beginning with a letter it sent its supporters on April 16, 2021, the day following publication of the article. Fadel carefully researched her article over many months, and CAIR had plenty of time to ponder its response. A functional organization would have decided it was time to come clean and make some changes, but instead CAIR essentially denied the allegations or any prior knowledge of them. It assured its readers that “…CAIR strives to hold every member of our team to the highest standards of personal and profession conduct. We also take allegations of misconduct, especially misconduct against women, very seriously.”
That same letter asserted that CAIR had conducted a thorough search of its records and interviewed staff and had found nothing to indicate it was aware of any allegations of sexual harassment by the executive director of CAIR-Florida, at the time.
If that is not a lie pure and simple, it is at least proof that CAIR tolerates sexual misconduct. Had none of the people at CAIR read Fadel’s opening sentence carefully?
“For months, stories swirled around a prominent Muslim civil rights leader, alleging secret marriages, bullying, sexual harassment.”
Any real investigation would have uncovered a complaint in March of 2016 by a woman claiming to have been one of the Florida director’s secret wives, while he was still married to the mother of his children. The alleged secret wife was privy to confidential information about a CAIR lawsuit. This was of some concern to CAIR board members and officials at the time, as a dozen or so emails demonstrate (see: CAIR’s Incriminating Communications – Reform CAIR.)
If secret marriages do not qualify as sexual harassment per se, those of the Florida director did lasting harm to women, harm which surely surpassed typical harassment.
The April 16, 2021 letter claimed that CAIR had identified an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation into the allegations, but thus far, no one had come forward. It invited anyone with a legitimate complaint to cooperate with the investigation.
But as religious scholar Aslam Abdullah told Leila Fadel, women mistrust that CAIR will handle their complaints seriously. Fadel wrote that “numerous women have come to him [Aslam Abdullah] with what he regards as credible allegations of harassment, sexual misconduct, or unfair treatment against senior men within CAIR or CAIR affiliates. These women don’t believe that CAIR National’s investigation will be fair and have refused to cooperate, he said.”
Were CAIR genuinely concerned about sexual misconduct and harassment, it could have reached out to the alleged victims of the Florida director in Leila Fadel’s article, including his first wife who accused him of domestic abuse, two secret wives, and a former assistant in the Florida office. Fadel was only able to interview one of the secret wives, since the director had effectively silenced the other. The first told Fadel that the director had stolen her self-worth and left her contemplating suicide daily.
Fadel interviewed a half-dozen accusers of the Florida director and reviewed internal CAIR documents, social media posts and email exchanges. Together, she wrote, “the accounts portray [him] as a man who used his position to seduce women and bully critics with impunity.”
In an interview with Fadel, the accused director emphatically denied nearly all the allegations. He did admit to being married to one of the wives but denied that it was secret. Yet, in an open letter to myself, he asserted, as he had in 2016, that the same individual was nothing more than a stalker and invented the story of their marriage. In that open letter, he claimed that he had never so much as disrespected a woman.
Parvez Ahmed, a former chair of the CAIR-National board, told Fadel that the Florida director’s case is an opportunity for CAIR to demonstrate that “they are doing everything within their power to take these allegations seriously.” Specifically, “The leadership of CAIR owes the community an explanation as to who knew what and when and how those complaints were handled.”
To date, CAIR has failed to hold the Florida director accountable, allowing him to resign with honor after his first wife went public with her story of years of domestic abuse. Instead, with its failed lawsuit and then its very imaginative press release of January 20, 2022, CAIR attacked its former Director of Chapter Development, the one who did try to hold the Florida director accountable at the time.
The Florida director was a rising star and top fundraiser for CAIR, and in that capacity he traveled frequently. After the secret wife filed her complaint, the Director of Chapter Development attempted to spur the leadership to conduct a bona fide investigation, while trying to limit the director’s travel. At one point the Florida director, quite perturbed by her due diligence, sent her a cease-and-desist letter. She did some extensive preparation leading up to what would turn out to be a brothers-only meeting, at the Florida director’s request, in the Washington office.
In that meeting, armed with a shameful letter by an attorney, the accused persuaded Nihad Awad, and presumably Ibrahim Hooper, Director of Communications, that his accuser had made the whole thing up, was a mean and dangerous woman, and had begged him and his lawyer to settle out of court. Never mind that the secret wife’s posts on social media, which Awad, Hooper, the defendant, and National board members had all read and discussed, had left little doubt that the two had been intimate. Awad told the Director of Chapter Development to apologize to the Florida director and learn to get along with him. The secret wife was never interviewed by CAIR.
Her vigilance in this episode was not the only reason CAIR retaliated against its former employee. As noted earlier, she had accused Awad himself of sexual harassment. But the National board cleared Awad of the allegations, without so much as interviewing her. (Awad is, without question, the dominant member of the board.)
CAIR’s January 20, 2022 Press Release
Eight months after CAIR filed its defamation lawsuit against its former employee, the judge in the case threatened to dismiss it if CAIR could not produce actionable evidence of defamation by the defendant or violations of her non-disclosure agreement. CAIR chose to withdraw the lawsuit, which it then portrayed as some sort of magnanimous decision.
In its January 20, 2022 press release, CAIR notes that the judge in the case had denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, but omitted the judge’s threat to dismiss it if CAIR could not deliver the goods in two weeks.
CAIR claims it could have continued with its lawsuit but decided not to in the hope of putting an end to its feud with its former employee. In truth, CAIR withdrew the lawsuit before it was forced to turn over documents and other evidence it had been withholding, and before any of its officers or board members had testified under oath.
The January 20, 2022 press release portrayed the defendant as an instigator of conflict with other staff members. It also portrayed her as some kind of extortionist, who was determined to get a bunch of CAIR’s money while undermining donor support for CAIR. To that end, CAIR asserted, she regularly conspired with Islamophobes. To make this case CAIR was quite inventive and loose with the truth.
That press release included a statement by the defendant which strongly praised CAIR on gender matters and which, out of context, seemed to flat-out contradict many of her allegations since leaving CAIR. The statement was added to a complaint the defendant made about the behavior of a male employee, and Awad told her to write it to guard against Islamophobes exploiting the incident. A minor detail.
The press release complained of the defendant sending emails in the middle of the night (Allah forbid), and noted that despite her many complaints against CAIR, she has not troubled herself to sue CAIR. Is one’s willingness and capacity to sue a measure of the validity of a claim? Unlike CAIR, its former employee does not have legions of lawyers on salary in need of something to do.
The press release noted that the former employee did take legal action against CAIR through a Washington, D.C. employment agency in order to collect money she claimed CAIR owed her. CAIR asserted: “The agency completely dismissed her complaint after we provided clear evidence that [her] complaint was unfounded.”
In truth, as her response to CAIR’s complaint in its lawsuit put it, her complaint was “denied on procedural grounds at a time when she was ill and was unable to prosecute her claims properly”( pp.3-4). Later, CAIR offered to pay her what it owed her as part of its effort to silence her with the non-disparagement agreement.
In its attempt to discredit its former employee, CAIR portrays her as a once valued team player turned troublemaker. CAIR blames her for a conflict she had with the director of the Maryland CAIR office, who, in the estimation of the former employee and other senior staff, was running the show in a haphazard and unprofessional manner which would have implications not just for that office but for the reputation of CAIR nationally.
The Maryland director had valuable attributes for CAIR, but chapter development may not have been one of them. Despite the former employee’s initiation of the Maryland project and her extensive experience and knowledge in that field (as Director of Chapter Development), the Maryland director took over operations there, excluding her. CAIR executive director Nihad Awad declined to support the Director of Chapter Development in the conflict, in part because the Maryland director had supported him in squashing efforts of national office employees to unionize in 2016 and 2017. (For a more thorough discussion of this matter between the Director of Chapter Development and the Maryland director, please see: When Competency and High Expectations Meet Mediocrity, and Worse – Reform CAIR.)
CAIR claims that the former employee resigned from CAIR after facing investigations, disciplinary action, conflict resolution counseling, and the threat of a restraining order, following her conflicts with different CAIR employees. In addition to the director of the Maryland office, the former employee had run-ins with the CAIR-Florida director, whose extracurricular activities while on travel she had sought to investigate, as I discussed above. When that matter was dropped by Nihad Awad, he asked/ordered the former employee to attend conflict resolution counseling, which she refused to do.
But what would have been the point of conflict resolution counseling in this case, after Nihad dropped the matter regarding the Florida director’s alleged secret wife, which person, the reader may recall, was never even interviewed by CAIR? Wasn’t the point to make it appear that the vigilant Director of Chapter Development was the problem, not CAIR’s tolerance of unprofessional management and sexual misconduct?
To reiterate, by the former employee’s telling, what convinced her she needed to resign were unwanted romantic/sexual advances toward her by Nihad Awad, which she specified in her response to CAIR’s complaint in the lawsuit. That would go a long way in explaining why Nihad is intent on discrediting her.
As noted above, CAIR tosses the term “Islamophobe” around repeatedly in its January 2022 press release. One reference is to Jeff Robbins, the former employee’s lead attorney in CAIR’s recent lawsuit against her. Mr. Robbins’ views on the Palestinian and Israeli conflict do not align with either the former employee’s or mine, or with CAIR’s. But Mr. Robbins is entitled to his opinion and to express it, and he is thoughtful and a highly qualified attorney besides. Being a strong supporter of Israel (if not of the current coalition government, which he characterizes as being dominated by autocrats, fanatics and homophobes), does not make him an Islamophobe. Nor does being a past board chair of the New England branch of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
But more to the point, once CAIR set out to suppress the former employee’s free speech with a defamation lawsuit, she was under no obligation to pick a lawyer suitable to CAIR.
As for Daniel Horowitz, he took the former employee’s case after many others declined, and did so on a pro bono basis. Although CAIR portrays this episode as some sort of harassment of the Muslim civil rights organization by Horowitz and his client, in truth a half dozen or more CAIR lawyers were trying to pressure the former employee to promise to silence herself and retract her previous criticisms of CAIR. In response, she secured a bigshot attorney, Horowitz. At one point she offered to button her lip for an outrageous amount of money, three-quarters of a million dollars, which CAIR obviously would not have paid.
It is true that Daniel Horowitz had previously represented Michael Savage, a bona fide Islamophobe, in an unsuccessful lawsuit against CAIR. But that does not make Horowitz an Islamophobe, nor the former employee a collaborator with Islamophobes.
CAIR claims that the former employee repeatedly sought money from CAIR which it did not owe her. In fact, CAIR did owe her many thousands of dollars, and had attempted to use it to buy her silence and her retraction of previous statements. With the exception of the above-mentioned occasion when she offered to go mum for a ridiculous price, which put a stop to CAIR’s efforts to silence here, the former employee refused to sell her right to free speech, but that did not end CAIR’s financial obligations to her.
Suppressing Rights of CAIR Employees
In addition to overlooking sexual misconduct and harassment by CAIR representatives, as well as other types of foul play, CAIR thwarted attempts of employees in the national office to unionize in 2016-17. Here is an excerpt of a letter the national employees sent Nihad Awad on October 7, 2016, after they voted to unionize:
“We believe that unionizing and agreeing to a collective bargaining agreement is in the best interests of all current and future CAIR National employees. This agreement, which will standardize our pay and benefits, and establish rules to govern workplace conduct and policies and handle employee grievances, will undoubtedly serve to strengthen workplace professionalism and employee morale. It will also demonstrate that CAIR National is truly committed to its fundamental mission of promoting fairness and social justice while defending the civil rights of individuals in the United States, particularly in the employment context (emphasis added).”
Awad could have acknowledged the logic of that argument and done the right thing. Instead, CAIR argued a preposterous case before the regional director of National Labor Relations Board, that it is “organized and operated exclusively for religious, education and charitable purposes.” Were it instead a civil rights and advocacy organization, which every donor knows it purports to be, it would be obligated to accept collective bargaining with its employees, workplace rules of conduct, and a grievance process with a neutral arbitrator–all things that Awad and Hooper were in a tizzy to avoid.
When CAIR management lost this bid to be exempt from the National Labor Relations Act, the regional director scheduled a meeting for employees to vote again on unionization. Awad and Hooper resolved to make sure that meeting never happened. They intimidated employees, fired some ringleaders, and bribed others into leaving.
Nonetheless, CAIR asserted in its April 16, 2021 letter that it “strongly supports the organized labor movement, including the right to organize.” With one qualification, apparently.
Conclusion
It is looking like CAIR-National is not capable of addressing the allegations on its own, without CAIR employees, CAIR supporters, and the Muslim community insisting that it do so. And it has spent too much of donors’ money trying to suppress rights it claims to uphold. What is needed is an honest-to-God investigation by a body empowered to make recommendations for both personnel and structural changes at CAIR. And with no further ado, the CAIR-National board should make known to its employees that it will welcome a vote by them to unionize.
And as a caution for any reader who was considering paying zakat to CAIR this Ramadan, CAIR’s assertion that donations to it are zakat eligible is quite a stretch of Surah 9, Ayat 60 (Qur’an, 9:60), especially considering that a not in-significant portion of its resources must go toward suppressing, not protecting, civil rights.
Reform CAIR 