Reform CAIR

Just How “Powerful” Is CAIR?

At CAIR’s virtual annual banquet last night, I heard a number of speakers who are doing good work, and who are obviously enthused about it. Notable for me were two attorneys and an intern Nihad Awad conversed with. Another was a California chapter leader. Nihad spoke about a passion that drives CAIR employees.

CAIR certainly conveys that image, and it draws a lot of talented, dedicated young Muslims and non-Muslims as well.

But not all of those idealistic young folks find what they expect to at CAIR. Some discover a toxic work environment. Some leave in disillusionment. And some are, in their own words, “broken” by that environment or by the behavior of CAIR representatives.

Underneath Nihad Awad’s soft-spoken and gifted manner, which is quite a bit different but no less impressive than Hassan Shibly’s manner, is a willingness to exploit CAIR’s power to the hilt and cover over problems and injustices it perpetrates even against its own employees, rather than deal honestly with them.

As I have noted in a few previous posts, CAIR’s problem is not so different from Israel’s problem. It has too much power. Power corrupts, even those who strive every day to surrender their will to God’s. In the case of Israel, it has too much military might, sophisticated technology, and political clout, which means that making peace with the Palestinians is never quite urgent for the government.

“CAIR is a very powerful organization”, Nihad Awad told a senior staffer when she was resolved to resign and refused to let CAIR purchase her first amendment rights to free speech. Indeed, CAIR is pouring a lot of donor money into a lawsuit in retaliation for the truths she has told about the organization.

Last night’s goal, I believe, was $225,000. A sizable chunk of that amount, or whatever amount short of that which was actually raised, will go to suppressing free speech.

I could not watch last night’s event straight through, and the first comment I tried to post was well over the 200 character limit, which I did not discover for an hour. So by the time I got the hang of it, the event was over. Nonetheless, I was able to post a couple comments. Well, maybe six. Maybe ten.

Not surprisingly, none of the speakers acknowledged in any way the injustices CAIR has perpetrated and still is perpetrating. Edward Mitchell in his concluding prayer came the closest to admitting anything, and perhaps he would like to be able to say more. Perhaps he would rather see CAIR try more transparency and honesty. But he is tightly constrained by the forcefield Nihad Awad still generates at CAIR.

Brother Omar Suleiman is not so constrained, and for months he has had every opportunity to educate himself about some well-documented allegations against CAIR. In addition to all of my “mass” mailings, he has been the lucky recipient of four or five personal emails from me. At least three former employees have written to him about their experiences, and he has not replied to any of them.

One victim of the Muslim leader he helped to expose urged him to decline CAIR’s invitation. To no avail of course.

Yesterday I sent brother Omar those very incriminating internal communications from 2016 which demonstrate that no less than six CAIR senior staffers and board members were concerned about an allegation of a secret marriage of one chapter leader (though CAIR claimed this past April 16 to have had no knowledge of the affair before December, 2020, you may recall).

But man, that guy could bring in the bucks for CAIR. So Nihad was probably relieved when the accused showed up at the brothers-only meeting with a shameful letter from his own lawyer which portrayed a former secret wife as a deranged, dangerous woman who concocted the whole thing on social media.

I sent the same emails to staff of Representatives Ilhan Omar, Andre Carson, and Cori Bush.

The evidence of a cover-up is indisputable. So, I guess we are going to see just how much power CAIR is.

And what, exactly, these Muslim leaders fear.

The Place of Women in American Islam, and the Heroic Obligations of Leadership

Since one day in June of 2016, when I decided to go meet some Muslims at an iftar in Denver, up through today, five years after my conversion, I have been answering concerns by well-intentioned friends about how women are treated in Islam.

It is not as though the modern secular west is exemplary in its treatment of women. But neither does the west claim to base its standards specifically on revelation from God.

Be that as it may, I now find myself at a loss to defend American Islam against the accusation that it treats women as second class. The near total silence of the community in the last seven months with respect to the allegations of gender discrimination and tolerance of sexual misconduct, among other ills, that have been made against CAIR is striking, and cannot serve the best interests of the Muslim community.

And it sells the faith short.

A very good friend and mentor of mine, who is no less concerned than I am with this matter–for we discuss it often—said something very revealing when I asked him what it would take to get a rough balance of sisters and brothers on the Shura of the Islamic Center of Boulder. He said: “Hopefully the Shura brothers will see the need for that.”

Reflecting on that remark, I am reminded that rights in society are not simply conceded by the more privileged to the erstwhile less privileged once the former come to see the wisdom of it on their own. Rights are demanded by the aspiring group. It is really only when rights are demanded that the erstwhile privileged come to their senses.

If this is correct, Shura brothers will not see the need for a rough gender balance on the board without a little prodding, so to speak.

When I got involved in the effort to bring some accountability to CAIR, I naively expected quicker progress.

My first several emails were to local Muslims with whom I had worked to establish a Colorado chapter of CAIR. I was urging them to join me in calling on CAIR-National to agree to an independent and credible investigation of allegations brought against it by former employees and board members. Many of those allegations were included in Leila Fadel’s expose published by Muslim-friendly NPR on April 15 of this past year (Civil Rights Org CAIR Accused Of Ignoring Alleged Misconduct : NPR.)

When that approach seemed to stall, I began to expand my mailing list, which eventually grew to include all of you. The list includes mostly people associated with CAIR, but also many local Muslims, some media folks, and some Muslim community leaders I do not know.

Many of my posts have focused on the sexual exploits of one popular chapter executive and the failure of CAIR-National to hold him accountable, or to reach out to his victims. I have devoted a few posts to defending a former employee turned whistleblower whom CAIR decided to sue for defamation and violations of a non-disclosure agreement.

Coming in the aftermath of the NPR article, this was poor judgement on the part of CAIR, as I believe time will tell.

The information this whistleblower has made public is not the sort of information CAIR has a right to expect to remain confidential. The things she has revealed are not “trade secrets” which non-disclosure agreements were intended to protect, information which a competing organization could utilize to its advantage. It is evidence of wrongdoing, pure and simple.

Granted, the information the whistleblower has revealed may very likely be used by real Islamophobes to disparage Muslims. Although very little of what I have written is previously undisclosed information, Islamophobes are free to repeat and twist it as well.

Have the whistleblower and others, including myself, done wrong by publicizing this evidence of wrongdoing by CAIR?

Or has CAIR done wrong by supposing it can avoid its day of reckoning by counting on the complacency of the community and intimidating any other would-be whistleblowers with its current lawsuit, funded of course by unsuspecting donors?

What does the Qur’an say about the prospects of keeping evidence of wrongdoing hidden from Allah? Are the whistleblower, myself, and others needlessly sowing division and busying ourselves with strictly private matters of fellow Muslims at our own moral peril? Or does the fact that these matters involve victims, including the whistleblower herself, put them in a different category, that of injustices?

Now I have learned that this is not the first scandal to hit the American Muslim community. Apparently, a number of Muslim leaders have felt entitled to acquire secret wives, for instance. I read about one such recent case, and the intervention by several other Muslim leaders in an attempt to hold this person to account.

In fact, I have written privately to one of those leaders who got involved in that effort, urging him to involve himself in this controversy with CAIR. If you can imagine, I did not write to him just once.

Here is one of those letters:

Assalaamu Alaykum Brother________,

Muslims need no convincing that an addiction to alcohol severely compromises one’s potential. Without rehearsing, a Muslim or anyone else could list numerous ways this is true.

But a Muslim alcoholic might feel doubly ashamed, insofar as Muslims are supposed to refrain from alcohol in the first place. This would be true even if that Muslim had no family members to despair for him, or whom he neglected, or anyone in particular who was a victim of his addiction.

In that case, our hypothetical alcoholic Muslim would, for the most part, only be harming himself.

Now, suppose a Muslim, who has some influence in the community, is made aware of an injustice but cannot find his or her way to confront it.

Unlike our hypothetical Muslim with an alcohol problem, we could not say that the complacency of the second Muslim was “victimless”, because injustice is never a victimless transgression.

On the Last Day, do we have any reason to think our second Muslim will fare any better than the first? Is it not conceivable, insofar as we cannot know what Allah will do, that the second will actually fare worse?

Many American Muslim leaders are aware that allegations of impropriety have been made against CAIR by individuals purporting to be the victims. The leader who has done nothing about these allegations or chosen not to learn more about them may have persuaded himself that he is not putting himself in any jeopardy by ignoring this issue.

But in this he may be mistaken.

Salaam,

Todd Buchanan

Of course, it is not only Muslim leaders who are called to address injustice. As you might remember, everyone who calls himself or herself a Muslim is under the same obligation. Life on earth is conditioned and unfree. But in coming to fear Allah we free ourselves of petty fears, like our fear of what our friends might say when we call out injustice.

Perhaps this blog was mistitled. Perhaps I should have titled it, “The Heroic Obligations of Being a Muslim”.

A Simple, Logical Case for an Investigation of CAIR

Last week we saw what millions of people across the nation, acting in concert, can accomplish. Despite a relentless Oklahoma Attorney General and others who were determined to see Julius Jones die, Governor Kevin Stitt commuted his sentence.

Granted, the ordeal itself was cruel and unusual for Jones, his family and friends, and pathetic for society. America still can’t kick the scourge of capital punishment.

Nonetheless, it was a victory for justice.

There is something about an execution date and the uncertainty of guilt that can stir people to action. Would that more Muslims in America felt an urgency for CAIR to come clean concerning some serious allegations against it, including egregious sexual misconduct, and justice done for the victims.

But whereas the uncertainty about Jones’ guilt should have and did work in his favor, any uncertainty with respect to the allegations against CAIR, many of which were aired more than seven months ago by NPR (Civil Rights Org CAIR Accused Of Ignoring Alleged Misconduct : NPR) should not preclude an honest-to-God investigation.

There is nothing final about an investigation, unlike an execution. And there is something short-sighted about leaving credible allegations of misconduct and malfeasance unaddressed, especially for CAIR when Muslims already are suspect by numbers of Americans. Growing numbers for all I know.

The evidence against CAIR is solid. The incriminating internal communications which I quote from extensively in my last post (CAIR’s Incriminating Communications – Reform CAIR), should demonstrate beyond any doubt that CAIR covered up a blatant violation of a woman’s rights and dignity by a prominent chapter executive. The victim filed a complaint in March of 2016, which CAIR failed to investigate. The alleged perpetrator himself saw to that outcome.

NPR journalist Leila Fadel discusses that case briefly in the article cited above. The victim did not speak with Fadel, for the accused chapter leader, a lawyer, had silenced her for the time being. Another woman similarly violated by the same CAIR leader, who did speak with Fadel, apparently did not file a complaint. Yet, she told Fadel that this CAIR celebrity stole her self-worth and left her contemplating suicide daily. A third woman who suffered a textbook case of sexual harassment in the Florida office by the same individual also did not file an official complaint. As she related to Fadel, she had been told in essence that the perpetrator was too valuable to the CAIR operation.

The emails I included in my last post are smoking guns, and ought to persuade anyone with an open mind that the many allegations against CAIR need to be properly investigated.

But setting all those emails aside, I want to demonstrate by a simple, logical argument, how I came to doubt the candidness of CAIR even before seeing those emails.

First, what are the odds that Muslim-friendly National Public Radio is going to publish an expose critical of a Muslim organization, and one richly endowed with lawyers, if it is not very confident of the content?

Very low, don’t you think?

From that, I think two conclusions logically follow. First, a fair amount of content divulged to Fadel probably did not survive the drafting and editing process at NPR. Second, what did survive was credible and noteworthy enough to NPR editors that it should be worth investigating. Otherwise, why feed Islamophobia with allegations that might be unremarkable except to people who have it out for Muslims to begin with?

Indeed, by now I have heard three people “in the know” say that what appeared in Fadel’s article was only a portion of what was related to her by former employees and board members of CAIR. Even so, it is plenty to answer for.

Thus far, all CAIR has done to address these allegations besides claiming to have had no previous knowledge of any “sexual harassment” complaints against the chapter leader, or any complaints at all against him prior to December, 2020, is to launch a spurious “independent” investigation.

Well, that’s not quite true. To be fair, CAIR has also tried to scapegoat a former employee by smearing her in the community and suing her for defamation and violations of a non-disclosure agreement, which lawsuit is intended to intimidate anyone else who might otherwise be inclined to speak up.

But oddly, or maybe not, no one has come forward to participate in that CAIR-sanctioned investigation.

I have written to one prominent Muslim leader who bothered to get involved in a scandal involving another Muslim leader a few years back. Over the last couple of months, I have written to this brother four times, urging him to trouble himself a bit by pushing for a bona fide investigation of the allegations against CAIR.

So far, nothing.

So I would put this question to any American Muslim, seven months and counting after the publication of Leila Fadel’s expose of CAIR: Are women second class in Islam, pure and simple?

If you have not yet read Leila Fadel’s article, I urge you to. And if you read it but were not moved to action by it, I urge you to read it again. Please ask yourself if that which survived a rigorous editing process is not sufficient cause for a credible investigation.

If you are still not persuaded, then please read my last post (CAIR’s Incriminating Communications – Reform CAIR). Then consider that CAIR claimed in an official statement issued this past April 16 to have had no knowledge before December of 2020 of any sexual misconduct by the named chapter leader.

In the name of the One who knows all that is revealed and all that is concealed, CAIR is playing a dangerous game.

Fourteen hundred years ago, Islam was an advancement for women’s rights. It can be so today, but that is going to take some work. To begin, American Muslims will need to insist that the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the nation be held accountable.

Enough of us acting in concert may yet accomplish something beautiful.

CAIR’s Incriminating Communications

Note: This post contains lengthy excerpts from three previous posts, with occasional minor changes or additions, as well as one email exchange (in Part Four) which I am publishing here for the first time. The purpose is to consolidate the internal communications of CAIR which put the lie to its claim to have conducted a thorough internal investigation and found no evidence of any complaints of sexual harassment [or, presumably, comparable or worse sexual misconduct] made against a prominent chapter executive. Although much of my own perspective (and a wee bit of editorializing) is included, there is plenty of the raw emails themselves, from which any reader is free to draw his or her own conclusions.

On April 16, 2021, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) published what was essentially a blanket denial of numerous allegations against it which Leila Fadel had included in an article published the previous day by National Public Radio (Civil Rights Org CAIR Accused Of Ignoring Alleged Misconduct : NPR.)

Fadel’s expose was long in the making, affording CAIR ample time to compose a credible response. Instead, it side-stepped the most damning allegations against a celebrated chapter leader by claiming to have no record of any “sexual harassment” complaints against him, and (by inference from another sentence) no knowledge of any allegations of misconduct by him before December of 2020.

However, CAIR senior staff and board members were plenty aware and concerned about a complaint made against the chapter leader in March, 2016, by a woman claiming to be an estranged “secret wife”. But the accused apparently succeeding in persuading the National Executive Director and the Director of Communications to drop the matter. Instead, the one who had sought a legitimate investigation of the complaint, the Director of Chapter Development, was told to apologize to the accused and learn to get along with him.

In the following, “Anisa” has been substituted for the real name of the former Director of Chapter Development.

Part One

excerpted from: A Smoking Gun at CAIR – Reform CAIR

These two sentences appear in the middle of the third paragraph of CAIR’s April 16 statement, which was updated on May 7:

“…CAIR strives to hold every member of our team to the highest standards of personal and professional conduct. We also take allegations of misconduct, especially misconduct against women, very seriously.”

And this paragraph appears as second to the last in the April 16 statement:

“[W]e want to be very clear: sexual harassment is immoral, illegal and absolutely unacceptable to us. After learning about the allegations in the NPR story, we reviewed our records, interviewed our staff, and confirmed that our office never received any complaints of sexual harassment, inside or outside of the workplace, against CAIR-Florida’s former director. CAIR-Florida conducted a similar review, and likewise found no record of any such complaints.”

The fact that CAIR had three weeks between April 16 and May 7 to mull everything over, makes that document especially damning for CAIR.

It is damning because in at least a dozen emails that I have seen between March 29 and July 20, 2016, CAIR senior staff either discussed an allegation of sexual misconduct and its potential harm to CAIR made against CAIR-Florida’s executive director Hassan Shibly on March 16 of that year, or were recipients of emails from Shibly regarding the matter.

The sequence demonstrates that National Executive Director Nihad Awad is clearly concerned at the outset (“I hope that is [sic] isn’t true”, March 30). On April 1, Nihad wrote to Anisa, Director of Chapter Development:

“I had a long call with his chairman Rasheed Abbara [of CAIR-Florida board of directors] to see where things are from their perspective. He basically agreed that the issue needs to be investigated and authorized me to speak to Hassan. So you and I should talk soon about how to approach Hassan.”

On the same day, Anisa, Director of Chapter Development, wrote to Nihad:

“I think when talking to Hassan, we need to come from a position that we believe him (or at least we want to believe him). A complaint was brought to our attention so we need to do our due diligence and gather information.”

On the previous day, March 30, Anisa had written to Nihad, Ibrahim and a Jenifer Wicks:

“We need a formal response from Hassan Shibly and do our due diligence to ensure adherence to the mission, vision and policies of CAIR. Attached is some information from Twitter and Facebook searches.””

Jump ahead to May 20. Anisa writes to Nihad and Ibrahim:

“Just so you are aware, Hassan Shibly is still being invited by chapters for speaking engagements (I heard of two just this week). This issue has the potential to harm the credibility and reputation of the entire organization due to alleged policy and branding violations. It has been two months since the original complaint was sent to us and almost one month since the last public attack against CAIR concerning this issue. I think we need to handle it more formally now. I suggest the following:

1. Inform the CAIR National board

2. Inform the CAIR-FL board

3. Assign a group of three (National staff + National board + CAIR-FL board) to conduct an internal investigation in response to the complaint sent to CAIR National in March 2016 and the follow-up public attacks on the organization related to this issue. This team will gather facts from all parties involved, determine if any CAIR policies were violated, assess current/future potential for harm to the organization, and make recommendations on next steps.

4. Inform Hassan Shibly about the internal investigation and ask that he 1) cooperate as it is a procedural matter and 2) not make any public speaking appearances while the investigation is pending (emphasis added).“

It would be another two months before Nihad would finally “deal” with this matter. In those two months, I conjecture, he came to the conclusion that Shibly was too valuable to CAIR, all its high-minded principles notwithstanding. Or, perhaps he simply did not know how to handle this young stallion.

Or maybe Nihad dropped the ball (more like a hot, hot potato) because, in the words of a CAIR National board member, CAIR-Florida was a “strong and visible chapter” that is “effective in getting media attention and whipping up publicity” and “CAIR-Florida has continued to increase donations ands support from high value donors.”

Money talks.

Nihad, as we know, dealt with Shibly by inviting him to Washington for what was a “brothers only” meeting with himself and Ibrahim, on basically how to keep the matter quiet. The meeting took place on July 21, 2016. The reader might recall that Anisa, for her persistence in seeking an investigation into the allegation, was asked at the end of the meeting to come in to apologize to Shibly.

Nihad had made some effort to meet with Shibly earlier, on June 6, but Shibly seems to have dodged the meeting, as judging by this email Nihad sent Anisa:

“He came by briefly and he was supposed to return after his meeting because we wanted to talk. But he did not. He said that he was late and that he had to go to the airport. I told him that I’d like to speak to him about a couple of important issues including his activities which was the subject of the email exchange and that I can take to the airport but the meeting went late.”

Earlier, Anisa had written to Shibly:

“Salam br. Hassan,

Insh’Allah this finds you well. I ask that you refrain from presentations, speeches, projects, meetings or other activities outside of your jurisdiction (Florida) that 1) identify you as a CAIR representative and /or 2) are within CAIR’s scope of work, until further notice. We will discuss the specific complaints with you and hope to resolve them soon.”

This must have rubbed him the wrong way, judging by his response:

“What are you talking about? I ask that you not give me orders. Salam.”

Hassan Shibly, Esq.

CAIR Florida

Some Simple, Poor Man’s Logic

In all the email exchanges you just read, how many times did you see the two words, sexual harassment?

That’s right. None.

Okay. How many times does sexual harassment or harassment (in the sexual context) appear in Leila Fadel’s article of April 15, 2021? I counted ten, by the old-fashioned method.

“Sexual harassment” is all over Leila Fadel’s article. But not all of the sexual misconduct allegations against Shibly were specifically sexual harassment. The most memorable ones, I would suggest, were “secret marriages”.

But in the course of the interviews, wouldn’t it dawn on somebody, or perhaps even yourself if you were either Nihad or Ibrahim, that there was something like a harassment allegation, but it wasn’t that exactly.

….Oh yes. There was something about a secret marriage. And it was only a few years ago. And it came from the secret wife herself! And that stubborn Anisa raised a real fuss over it.

But if nobody remembered that Anisa had something to do with it, but had noticed the following short paragraph early in Leila Fadel’s article, that also could have helped narrow the focus of the investigation:

“When concerned parties brought allegations to senior CAIR officials in Washington, D.C., and Florida, former employees said, there was little, if any, follow-up action. They said leaders were aware of some of the allegations as early as 2016.”

Well, that’s something like how an honest all-staff interview would probably go. An honest process could not fail to produce some recollection of the Shibly charges only four years previously. Especially, as I said, if Nihad and Ibrahim were part of the process.

And that is why I can say with no hesitation, that the following paragraph which appears second to last in that April 16/May 7 document is deliberately deceptive:

“In the meantime, we want to be very clear: sexual harassment is immoral, illegal and absolutely unacceptable to us. After learning about the allegations in the NPR story, we reviewed our records, interviewed our staff, and confirmed that our office never received any complaints of sexual harassment, inside or outside of the workplace, against CAIR Florida’s former director….”

Sexual misconduct is not limited to sexual harassment. Unless you have some need for it to be.

As I noted in a recent post (CAIR’s Dysfunction and the Muslim Community – Reform CAIR), were sexual harassment truly unacceptable to CAIR as it claims, CAIR could have demonstrated that by interviewing the Florida employee who did allege sexual harassment by Shibly and who is named in Fadel’s April 15, 2021 article, and offering some sort of redress, rather than simply claiming ignorance of the matter.

We don’t have to assume the worst of Nihad and Ibrahim to understand that a culture of misogyny may prevail at CAIR. Misogyny is alive and well in the Muslim community, as it is, when push comes to shove, in the United States Senate (think Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey-Ford). But other factors reinforce it at CAIR, such as the profound reluctance of the Muslim community to talk about it publicly, and that bottom line of raking in the bucks. It was said of Hassan Shibly that he brought in “millions.”

· Note: The employees who were responsible for compliance from 2016-2020 and dealt directly with the Shibly saga were no longer employed by CAIR when such an interview would have happened.

Part Two

Excerpted from: Charming, Reckless, with a License to Exploit Women – Reform CAIR

Shortly after posting A Smoking Gun at CAIR – Reform CAIR , five more communications, each still smokin’, came to my attention. These five must reads give us some sense of how frustrating it was for the few people inside CAIR who were wise to Hassan Shibly and his charming ways, to deal with him. In one of them, Shibly’s willingness to bully and lie outright is on full display.

In that communication Shibly, then executive director of CAIR-Florida, warns that shaitan (the devil) is at work. He might be right, but it’s not Anisa doing shaitan’s bidding. Unfortunately, we do not have time to do justice to that communication in this post. (See Part Three below.) But rest assured, it can explain how Shibly may have intimidated some of the leadership of CAIR.

Not all. Not the one who is now the target of CAIR’s defamation lawsuit.

In the spring and summer of 2016, the one who might have reined Shibly in, the National Executive Director of CAIR, never did. Shibly certainly wasn’t going to let the new Director of Chapter Development, a sister, cramp his style.

You will recall from our last post that Shibly was pretty ticked in one email exchange in which Anisa was frank with him and told him he should not accept any speaking engagements or represent CAIR in any way outside of Florida, pending an investigation (that would never quite get going). You might recall that Shibly actually sent Anisa a cease and desist letter. Here is part of that letter from Shibly:

“If there’s any further need to discuss, Nihad can call me any time. I’m happy to discuss with him. I will not not [sic] am not obligated to discuss with anyone else. People should study Surah Noor and their Islamic ethics and follow the good example set by Nezar, Zahra, Dawud, my family and others who had seen the attacks [the secret wife’s tweets] but adhered to our Islamic teachings. Alhamdulilah the attacks are a non-issue. Only person ever mentioning or alluding to them is Anisa at this point.”

Alhamdulilah, the “attacks” were from a woman he exploited with his supposed Islamic-sanctioned secret marriage, and whom he manipulated emotionally. It will be an “issue” to her, putting it mildly, for the rest of her life. Surah Noor (Qur’an, 24) cannot be read as cover for men who “marry” women for pleasure and then smear and shame them when the fun is over.

On July 8, 2016, Anisa expressed her deep concern and frustration with Shibly in an email to Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR-Los Angeles:

“Hassan is reckless and I literally lose sleep over what he is going to do next that will have a negative impact on all chapters. I am very concerned that most chapters are unaware of the issues and invite him to speak, jeopardizing their reputation in their own communities if/when his issues become public. These national T.V. appearances and White House meetings featuring him as a CAIR representative may hurt us in the future. I agree there needs to be a solution. He blocked me on email and was difficult on the phone when I tried to discuss some issues with him—there’s no accountability. My next step is to submit a report to the National board and ask them to intervene. We could use your help.”

The report Anisa would submit to the National board would be one of several, none of which it acted on.

On July 18, I.T. Director Omar Ali wrote to Anisa concerning Hassan Shibly:

“It baffles my mind to see a chapter ED decision(s) superseding that of a Chapter Developer….The double edge sword for you would be that those who fall to his “charm” may think you have an agenda against him personally if they are not privy to the facts.

“But if I know how things work here, there’s not going to be a way for any of us to know until it’s probably too late (emphasis added).”

That same day, Nihad chastised Anisa for her concerted efforts to constrain CAIR’s bucking bronco, since he was not jumping on that bronco himself:

“Please adhere to my request not to communicate on this issue with Hassan and others until we talk and resolve this issue. Hassan has been complaining to us that you are not heeding the call. I see that he is not heeding the call either. But at least you answer to me as your supervisor. He may not unfortunately.”

Also that same day, Shibly sent Anisa, Nihad, Ibrahim, Ahmed Al-Shehab, and Roula Allouch, the National board chair, a cease and desist letter, the fifth communication I mentioned at the outset of this post (which I discuss in Part Three below).

Suffice it to say, any inclination Nihad and Ibrahim might have had to constrain Shibly in the least, dissipated.

The only one to persist, though she had read the same three-page threat-filled rant of Shibly’s, was the Director of Chapter Development.

Anisa spent the day of July 21, preparing for the meeting with Hassan Shibly. She produced a formal report to Nihad along with a list of questions to ask Shibly. Working up to the last minute, she went to a White House Eid event and made sure Hassan came back with her to the CAIR office, while Nihad prepared for the meeting.

Anisa was excluded from the meeting, as you will recall, except that she was asked to apologize to Shibly at the end.

And that’s just one example of how CAIR “strives to hold every member of our team to the highest standards of personal and professional conduct…[and takes] allegations of misconduct, especially misconduct against women, very seriously” (CAIR statement, April 16/May 7).

CAIR has all of these emails. No less than six individuals of CAIR National were privy to these discussions.

Part Three

Excerpted from: The Shaga’ah of Two Sisters – Reform CAIR

Three days before the brothers-only meeting in which Hassan was exonerated, he sent a three-page letter to Nihad, Ibrahim, Anisa, Ahmed Al-Shehab, and Roula Allouch. In that letter, Shibly is very annoyed that Anisa does not approve of him and CAIR-Florida hosting the 2017 National retreat for Executive Directors.

Shibly is moving full-speed ahead with his plans, while Anisa is still pushing CAIR to begin a bona fide investigation of the allegation of a secret marriage of his, and assessing the risks of such a prominent role for Shibly given the allegation and numerous social media posts by the secret wife herself.

In his telling of events, Shibly is the peacemaker and only responds to Anisa’s provocations. All the many other chapter heads are wondering what is eating Anisa, who just can’t let the past rest. Everyone but Anisa was over this matter months ago. By Shibly’s telling, Nihad considers the case closed. Shibly won a great victory in court defending his honor against his accuser [the estranged secret wife], whom he calls a “stalker.” He peppers his admonitions of Anisa’s nosiness and overreach with suggested Islamic concepts for all to ruminate upon. And, being the wise man he is, he can sometimes be gentle with Anisa:

“I am sure Sr. Anisa fears Allah enough to stop potential buhtan and ghiba. There is no excuse at this point. Let me be clear, I do not have ill-will to Anisa. In fact I love that she probably acted out of sincerity and love of organization. But her actions were still wrong. If they are stopped/corrected we can all move forward…

“Finally, we need to have more love for each other and better communication.”

This is more than a dispute between a Chapter Executive Director and the Director of Chapter Development, in which the pecking order might not be obvious to most. That could not explain the intensity of the dispute.

What might explain the intensity is that Hassan Shibly probably suspects that Anisa is wise to his ways. So would be anyone else at CAIR paying attention. But Shibly is charming and a very valuable fundraising asset for CAIR. And he can be sparing of mercy as well.

Shibly ends his letter with this stern warning to Anisa:

“I am available to speak to Nihad any time. However I will consider any further communication about my [sic] or my chapter by Anisa to anyone a violation of both my rights before Allah and before the legal system and will demand my full rights both in dunya and akira. There is no excused for her to spread fitna when Nihad and I can communicate directly. And there is absolutely 0 risk to CAIR or chapters or anything else like that“(emphasis added).

Zero risk.

Right.

Shibly’s furry notwithstanding, Anisa would take it upon herself to minimize his opportunities to meet and seduce women as a representative of CAIR. She persuaded the CAIR-CA chapter to host the gathering. But her days were numbered, because there just was not enough room at CAIR for the good ol’ boys club and this fearless upstart, Sr. Anisa.

Part Four

On July 20, 2016, one day before Hassan Shibly would meet with Nihad Awad and Ibrahim Hooper concerning the complaint by a former secret wife, Anisa sent Nihad, Ibrahim, Roula Allouch (chair of the national board), and Ahmed Al-Shehab (national board member) the following draft letter addressed to Hassan Shibly for their review and comments:

Dear Hassan,

As you know, we are concerned about the allegations and attacks directed at CAIR on social media over the last several months. A woman named [deleted] made disparaging references to CAIR in her public Tweets and Facebook posts, such as:

“CAIR Fls Hassan Shibly fooled me majorly into a love affair, I wonder if he’s good at fooling clients on the job @CAIRNational #douchebag.”
“CAIRNational he had told me confidential info regarding a lawsuit with an imam and a little girl, got to listen to conference calls, etc.”
“You guys [CAIR] should probably ask why Hassan Shibly uses his religious beliefs that men can have four wives to manipulate women into having affairs with him behind his legal wife’s back.”….
“CAIR blocked me becuz I’ve exposed one of their prized leaders for dishonesty, Hassan Shibly. How’s that investigation going?”

This issue was initially brought to the attention of the CAIR-Florida board, but they deferred it to CAIR National and asked that we follow up on it. To formally close this matter and to ensure that we have done our due diligence to protect the CAIR brand, the CAIR National board requires clarification on the following:

More information on your relationship with [deleted] including the type of relationship, how you met, how long you have known her, and her affiliation to CAIR/CAIR-Florida/CAIR chapters.
You referred to [deleted] as a “stalker” on multiple occasions and stated that she is a “fan” (of you, in your capacity as CAIR-FL’s executive director). I would like you to elaborate on that so we can determine if this issue poses safety risks to you or others at CAIR, and if they may potentially be stalked by this individual in their capacity as executive directors of CAIR chapters.
You stated that the disparaging Tweets were made in “connection with some enemies we have made…” We would like you to elaborate on who those “enemies” are, why they are “enemies” of CAIR, and their role in this matter.
More information on your meetings, if any, with [deleted] during travel for speaking engagements, chapter engagement efforts and/or community outreach, in which you were identified as a CAIR-Florida representative.
On March 29, 2016, you stated “They removed everything,” referring to the disparaging Tweets and Facebook posts about CAIR. However, on March 30, 2016, several posts disparaging CAIR were still visible. We would like documentation that the disparaging Tweets and Facebook posts about CAIR have been, in fact, deleted.
I appreciate you sharing documentation that provides more information on the defamation lawsuit and look forward to reviewing the documents when you are in Washington, D.C. this week.
I would also like to discuss several other issues with you, including affiliation, jurisdiction, branding, and conflict of interest. We appreciate your candor and cooperation to resolve these matters.

Sincerely,

In response, Ibrahim Hooper wrote:

PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL

Salaam,

How about questions the picture* and the fact that she knew about an internal matter (the threat of the lawsuit over the girl) that nobody outside CAIR and [deleted]knew about?

Roula Allouch responded with a much shorter proposed letter to Shibly, which I am not including here. Ahmed Al-Shehab responded:

Jazaka’ Allah Khair Anisa for sending this out so late in the night, you probably did not get to sleep…

I agree with Roula, I think we can take subset of these points for now and not have all the details in email.

Br. Ibrahim, I don’t see a problem asking him the questions you have as they are concerning on how she knew all the details…and asking him to explain the pictures. If he pushes back, our argument should be that it is no longer about protecting his reputation, it is about protecting the reputation of the entire Organization, thus we need to have all true facts so we don’t get blind sided by Islamophobes.

Ahmed

When it came time to lay down the law, it was Hassan who did it. He arrived at the July 21st meeting with a letter from his lawyer which made short, harsh work of the woman Hassan had lured into a bogus marriage. The lawyer argued, in essence, that her allegations were all a hoax, and she had virtually begged (“mightily beseeched us…”) for a resolution of the matter. Never mind the confidential information she shared on her posts. Anisa never saw that document until it was sent in an open letter to me in a response by Hassan Shibly to my “incessant diatribes”, on July 12, 2021.

The reader can make his or her own judgment about that letter which apparently satisfied Nihad Awad. Here is the link: 2016 Vindication (https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B12GzFCC1Go3JVi

The picture referred to was posted by the secret wife of herself and Hassan Shibly cheek-to-cheek with matching stocking caps with the caption: “What love looked like.”

When Competency and High Expectations Meet Mediocrity, and Worse

Reading Hassan Shibly’s July 12 reply to my “incessant diatribes,” I had a Socrates moment. In Apology, Plato’s account of Socrates’ defense before the Athenian court which would condemn him to death, Socrates begins with these words:

I do not know what effect my accusers have had on you, gentlemen, but for my own part I was almost carried away by them—their arguments were so convincing. On the other hand, scarcely a word of what they said was true.

As many of you know, Hassan Shibly can be very convincing, even when scarcely a word of what he says is true.

If we forget for a moment that Shibly’s exploits have left many women harmed, some even “broken” and suicidal by their own accounts, it is easy to conclude that I have been too hard on him. But if a woman’s dignity equals a man’s, he needs to be held accountable. Otherwise, there can be no advancement for women’s rights in the American Muslim community.

And the Qur’an was not given to us to keep women oppressed.

A friend of mine wrote that he was troubled by my more hard-hitting posts on Shibly recently; he preferred earlier posts in which I was calling for a credible investigation into the many allegations against CAIR by former employees and board members.

I could have stopped with those posts, had CAIR made any honest movement to address those grievances. Instead, CAIR decided to sue Sister Lori, and has since portrayed her as a trouble-maker who went around CAIR picking fights anywhere she could.

Even in her futile attempt to see that a complaint against Shibly by a former secret wife was properly investigated, Lori is portrayed as harassing poor Brother Hassan. And that is why Nihad told her to apologize to him, after Nihad lost any nerve to confront Shibly himself.

Then Lori refused to attend conflict resolution training, ordered by Nihad.

What was the point of conflict resolution for Lori, after the complaint against Shibly was dropped, without so much as an investigation, or even an interview of the woman who brought the complaint? Was the point not to undermine and isolate this uppity sister?

Then CAIR portrayed Lori as the instigator of tensions between herself and Zainab Chaudry of the Maryland satellite project, which Lori had begun and Zainab had gradually excluded her from. With eight years of experience developing and heading CAIR-Minnesota, with a law degree and a certificate in nonprofit management from Georgetown, with a year on the CAIR National board, and in her official role as Director of Chapter Development, Lori knew a thing or two about developing CAIR chapters, satellite offices, and other models depending on resources, needs and expectations of the local community.

I think it would be fair to say that Sister Lori knew more about nonprofit development than anyone else at CAIR. Details that might not have meant much to you or me did mean something to her. There was a right way to go about setting up a satellite office or any other model she had developed, and plenty of wrong ways.

Lori was concerned that Zainab, who is a talented writer and speaker but lacked a background in nonprofit development, was basically winging the Maryland project. She was also providing services which a lawyer should have been providing, including conducting Know Your Rights trainings, meeting with clients by herself for case intakes, and talking about legal issues in the media. At the time, there was a pending lawsuit against CAIR because a former employee had pretended to be a lawyer and taken clients’ money. CAIR would lose a lot of money in that lawsuit. (See: Lopez v. CAIR, 826 F.3d 492 (2016) and Saiyed v. CAIR, 346 F.Supp.3d 88, 2018).

In her June 23, 2019 eight page writeup of her grievances with CAIR, Lori went in to some detail about the tensions between herself and Zainab. Here is an excerpt:

When I objected to the haphazard way in which the Maryland office was being setup, I was threatened with termination. I was also asked to go on administrative leave because of my “interference’ in the Maryland office, a project that I created.

Numerous CAIR National staff members, chapter leaders, and community members attributed the dysfunctional and mismanaged Maryland office to me and my department, and continued to do so until my resignation in May 2018.

In a December 2017 email to the National board, Sister Lori listed the many tasks involved in developing a satellite office. The list would be surprisingly long and detailed to anyone without her background. It certainly was for me. In her June 23, 2019 document, she wrote:

The board did not formally respond to my email or my concerns. Instead, the executive director justified his decision by telling me that he was worried about losing [Zainab’s] donors in Maryland. He also informed me that [Zainab] had assisted him in shutting down staff efforts to unionize at CAIR National in 2017 and that he would be unable to take any action against her due to her “loyalty” to the organization.

Lori further wrote:

I was barred from attending the Maryland office grand opening celebration in January 2018, although other CAIR National staff were invited to attend- including staff from my department. When I informed the executive director that I would not attend as a CAIR representative but would attend in my individual capacity with my family, I was told that I was not allowed to attend the celebration in my personal capacity either and that security would be called on me and my family if we attended.

Was Sister Lori making too much of her concerns about the Maryland project? Any of us without her experience and training would be guessing if we tried to answer. For her vigilance, she was steadily isolated and undermined by Nihad, Ibrahim, and Zainab. Finally, she submitted her letter of resignation to Nihad on January 14, 2018, to be effective on May 11, 2018. I quote from that letter at length:

You assigned me the task of developing and implementing a formal process for new chapters (attached is an overview). It’s a detailed process that includes an assessment, external audit, benchmarks, action plans, fundraising goals and plans, site visits, etc. You also assigned me the task of developing and implementing a formal process for satellite offices, which I have been doing for CAIR West Virginia, CAIR Hawaii, and CAIR Delaware. This was to be even more comprehensive because those offices will be directly affiliated with CAIR National.

Maryland was on my startup list, and the board approved the satellite office proposal I wrote and submitted. Zainab is now singlehandedly and haphazardly opening an office in Maryland and it lacks the proper infrastructure and oversight. There is a history of concerns (see below) and I have brought them to your attention without any remedy. When I informed you that she contacted a potential candidate about her job application for the same position, violating applicant confidentiality, what was done about it? Several staff (including 3 directors) are concerned about the Maryland situation and, instead of addressing those very valid concerns, you’re announcing the opening of it in one week?…

This situation is undermining our goal to create a strong, sustainable nationwide infrastructure. We can’t have a professionally-run, grassroots CAIR presence in all 50 states if Maryland is not held to the same standards as other chapters and offices.

In truth, Nihad was probably at a loss to know how to deal with both Shibly and Sister Lori. The first, as I described him in a post long, long ago, was a bucking bronco, and likely intimidated Nihad with his liberal use of cease and desist letters and that very peculiar letter from a lawyer he brought to the all brothers meeting on June 21, 2016. In addition, Shibly was a prize asset for CAIR with his fundraising skills. In time it would become clear how he used his high-profile position at CAIR to pursue his extracurricular interests.

Sister Lori, after years of training and education, came to CAIR-National determined to do her part for social justice and American Islam. Working for CAIR would be an opportunity to leave the world a better place for her having been here. What she found was mediocrity, deceit, spinelessness at the top, and corruption. What earned the retaliation of Management was her unwillingness to tolerate it.

Shibly’s sexual appetites and abuse of his wife would eventually cause his sudden departure, with CAIR dropping what was a sham investigation of him anyway. With Lori’s resignation, her troubles had only begun. She knew too much, and so CAIR tried to leverage $30,000 it owed her to buy her silence. But she refused the deal. In time CAIR would pay her $10,000, and try to leverage the remaining $20,000 to buy her silence again.

Unsuccessfully, again.

A Smoking Gun at CAIR

Introduction

In previous posts, I have not had many nice things to say about the document CAIR produced in response to Leila Fadel’s April 15 article, published by NPR (Civil Rights Org CAIR Accused Of Ignoring Alleged Misconduct : NPR.) I never saw the initial version of that CAIR response, sent out April 16; I only have the revised version of May 7. That version contains a number of deliberately deceptive or demonstrably false statements.

For example, these two sentences appear in the middle of the third paragraph of the document:

It might seem reasonable to assume, as I did up until recently, that the Communications Director is chiefly to blame for the deceptive or false statements. But he might not be the prime mover of the process that produced that document. In fact, I have come to a rather unremarkable conclusion: Nihad Awad is the main personnel problem at CAIR. He more than anyone else generates the forcefield that prevails at CAIR.

Nihad faces constraints himself, of course, such as the imperative of securing as much funding as possible for CAIR. But somehow that imperative must not be permitted to justify union-busting, or keeping sources of foreign funding hidden, or retaining and continuing to promote a master fundraiser who happens to also be a sexual predator.

Personnel changes are often ineffective without structural changes, and only after a thorough investigation of allegations and problems at CAIR can anyone have a good idea of what changes in both categories are called for. But it would certainly move things along and be in the interest of the organization, its mission, and the Muslim community for Nihad Awad to step down.

But I promised you a smoking gun, so here we go.

Part One: The Emails

The April 16/May 7 document is pretty much a blanket denial of any responsibly or knowledge of sexual or other misconduct by CAIR leaders at either the National office or affiliate offices, in keeping with the denials by CAIR contained in the NPR article.

The fact that CAIR had three weeks between April 16 and May 7 to mull everything over, makes that document especially damning for CAIR.

It is damning because the CAIR leadership discussed in at least 8 emails dated March 29, March 30, April 1, April 27, and May 20, and June 6, 2016, an allegation of sexual misconduct reported as early as March 16 against CAIR-Florida’s executive director, Hassan Shibly.

The sequence demonstrates that Nihad is clearly concerned at the outset (“I hope that is [sic] isn’t true”, March 30). On April 1, Nihad wrote to Lori Saroya, Director of Chapter Development.

“I had a long call with his chairman Rasheed Abbara to see where things are from their perspective. He basically agreed that the issue needs to be investigated and authorised me to speak to Hassan. So you and I should talk soon about how to approach Hassan.”

On the same day, Lori Saroya, Director of Chapter Development, wrote to Nihad:

On the previous day, March 30, Lori had written to Nihad, Ibrahim and a Jenifer Wicks:

Jump ahead to May 20. Lori writes to Nihad and Ibrahim:

1. Inform the CAIR National board

2. Inform the CAIR-FL board

Nihad, as we know, dealt with Shibly by inviting him to Washington for what was a “brothers only” meeting with himself and Ibrahim, on basically how to keep the thing quiet. The meeting took place on July 21, 2016. The reader might recall that Lori Saroya, for her persistence in seeking an investigation into allegations of Shibly’s sexual misconduct and exploitation of women, was asked at the end of the meeting to come in to apologize to Shibly.

Nihad had made some effort to meet with Shibly earlier, on June 6, but Shibly seems to have dodged the meeting, as judging by this email Nihad sent Lori:

“He came by briefly and he was supposed to return after his meeting because we wanted to talk. But he did not. He said that he was late and that he had to go to the airport. I told him that I’d like to speak to him about a couple of important issues including the his activities which was the subject of the email exchange and that I can take to the airport but the meeting went late.”

Earlier, Lori had written to Shibly:

“Salam br. Hassan,

This must have rubbed him the wrong way, judging by his response:

“What are you talking about? I ask that you not give me orders. Salam.”

Hassan Shibly, Esq.

CAIR Florida

Oh, silly me again!

This is the same Esquire who sent Lori, Director of Chapter Development, a cease and desist letter in response to her attempts to have a real investigation undertaken of Shibly’s alleged misconduct.

Part Two: Some Simple, Poor Man’s Logic

Since I love to speculate, I will venture that Hassan Shibly was about as easy for CAIR to rein in as it is to keep Donald Trump to a scripted speech. Which never happens.

In all the emailage you just read, how many times did you see the two words, sexual harassment?

None.

Okay. How many times does sexual harassment or harassment (in the sexual context) appear in Leila Fadel’s piece? I counted ten, by the old-fashioned method. So let’s say ten or more.

So let’s assume you are CAIR management and you interview all of your current staff (including yourselves)* and review all emails for any trace of sexual harassment allegations against Hassan Shibly. I don’t know for sure that you would uncover any. (Which is not to say there weren’t any: remember, as things go around here, anything is possible—stay tuned!)

….Oh yes. There was something about a “secret” marriage. And it was only a few years ago. And it came from the secret wife herself! And that stubborn Lori Saroya raised a real fuss over it.

But if nobody remembered that Lori Saroya had something to do with it, but had noticed the following short paragraph early in Leila Fadel’s article, that also could have helped narrow the focus of the investigation:

And that is why I can say with no hesitation, that the following paragraph which appears second to last in that April 16/May 7 document is total nonsense, and deliberately deceptive:

In the meantime, we want to be very clear: sexual harassment is immoral, illegal and absolutely unacceptable to us. After learning about the allegations in the NPR story, we reviewed our records, interviewed our staff, and confirmed that our office never received any complaints of sexual harassment, inside or outside of the workplace, against CAIR Florida’s former director….

Sexual misconduct is not limited to sexual harassment, unless you have some need for it to be.

But we don’t have to assume the worst of Nihad and Ibrahim to understand that a culture of misogyny may prevail at CAIR. Misogyny is alive and well in the Muslim community, as it is, when push comes to shove, in the United States Senate. (Think Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey-Ford.) But other factors reinforce it at CAIR, such as the profound reluctance of the Muslim community to talk about it publicly, and that bottom line of raking in the bucks. It was said of Hassan Shibly that he brought in “millions.”

*The employees who were responsible for compliance from 2016-2020 and dealt directly with the Shibly saga were no longer employed by CAIR when such an interview would have happened.

It’s Been a Long Time Coming

Introduction

What you are about to read in Part One below concerning the coverup by CAIR of Hassan Shibly’s sexual misconduct is based on a document which I recently learned was made available to the CAIR community in June of 2019. But many people who should have read it with open minds apparently did not. Hence, CAIR is in deeper trouble today.

Silly me. I thought that document contained the worst of the worst of CAIR’s deceitfulness and complicity in Shibly’s exploits. But I was wrong. A more recent document, which Lori Saroya and her attorneys filed this past Friday, June 11, in response to the lawsuit CAIR filed against her on May 21, exposes more. (Here is the link: https://wecairblog.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/cairlawsuit62021-2.pdf) Part Two of this post will share some of that content.

And I am not promising this will be the end of the Shibly business. As I noted before, one thing seems to lead to another around here.

Sister Lori’s response is rich in examples of CAIR’s dirty dealings, misuse of donor funds, incompetence, mismanagement, bullying, sexual harassment, and gender as well as religious discrimination. CAIR is corrupt, and has left many employees and board members harmed. I expect the subject matter will keep us at reformcair.com busy for quite some time.

The grand prize for corruption and outright fabrication of truth in our times goes to Donald Trump, unquestionably. But CAIR is not all that far behind. The top bros at CAIR barter truth and principle for a measly gain, and bully as they think necessary.

So stay tuned.

Part One: What the CAIR community learned two years ago

In my previous two posts, I included bits of how CAIR National dealt with an allegation of sexual misconduct against Shibly, executive director of CAIR-Florida, in the summer of 2016. In a statement issued this past April 16, updated May 7, CAIR denies receiving any “complaints of sexual harassment” against Shibly, and claims to have only learned of the allegations against him this past December when they appeared online.

Not true, as Part Two will explain. But sticking with information that was available to the CAIR community two years ago, CAIR definitely received an allegation of an inappropriate relationship of Shibly’s with a woman–one of his secret marriages–while he was still married to the mother of his children. As a result, Shibly was invited to Washington to tell his side of the story and to discuss how to control the potential damage to CAIR over the incident.

The purpose of that meeting went beyond exoneration of Shibly and damage control. Another purpose, apparently, was to humiliate a CAIR staff person who dared to take the allegation seriously and deserving of an honest investigation. The incident demonstrates that CAIR’s assertions that it takes all allegations of sexual misconduct seriously, and that it holds CAIR employees to high expectations of appropriate behavior, are hollow.

In my last two posts I was tiptoeing around that 2016 meeting because I assumed the document I was drawing from had not yet circulated among many people. I have since discovered that the document was sent to several CAIR chapter leaders in June of 2019, but instead of being outraged by what the document revealed about CAIR National, it was largely ignored and may have only contributed to the disparagement of its author.

Some of you have seen the document. I know that at least one chapter leader blocked it from being viewed by other individuals associated with that chapter. I don’t know how many chapter leaders blocked it, but I am going to infer that rumors about the author must have been already circulating, and the Washington office likely had something to do with that.

Reading the whole document, I get the impression that the author (henceforth to be designated “the author”) is very knowledgeable about nonprofit organizations and best practices, and was really trying to bring more professionalism and transparency to CAIR. The basic problem with that approach was that any progress would have necessarily put constraints on the top men at CAIR.

Those guys were not about to concede any of their privileges and power, and this upstart employee was steadily undermined and isolated. In the end, CAIR cheated her out of $20,000.

In one episode, a project the author had begun and for which she was clearly the most qualified was steadily taken over by someone less qualified. When the author asked the executive director for his backing, he told her that he was siding with the other employee, since she had supported him against the efforts of CAIR National employees to unionize in 2016.

But let’s get back to the Shibly story. From previous posts you might recall that the executive director of CAIR National immediately sided with Shibly when he was accused of an inappropriate relationship in 2016. He did not allow the author and the legal director to do their jobs and conduct a formal investigation, including interviewing the woman who brought the allegation. (The latter was allegedly blocked on CAIR’s social media account).

The author submitted her initial report to the executive director, including a photo she had found online which appeared to corroborate the allegation. The author was reprimanded for the report and the photo, and was told that if it became public, “the Islamophobes would use it to attack CAIR.” The accused was invited to Washington to explain his side of the story, and discuss how to keep the issue quiet. The woman was never interviewed by anyone representing CAIR.

The author was barred from the meeting with Shibly, even though chapter-related issues and complaints were part of her job. The meeting was a brothers only thing, because the accused “would feel more comfortable with brothers in the room.” But the top men of CAIR did ask the author to join the meeting at the very end, to apologize to Shibly.

The only way that CAIR’s statement of April 16, updated on May 7, could be anything less than a bald-faced lie is if the sexual misconduct alleged in 2016 did not include sexual harassment. But the allegation was worse; it was about a secret “marriage” of Shibly’s. The fact that the same statement makes no mention of CAIR receiving any claim of sexual misconduct against Shibly (which, as we have seen, it attempted to cover up rather than investigate), demonstrates that CAIR doesn’t give a hoot about sexual misconduct, and truth has no purchasing power there.

If it were otherwise, CAIR would right now be conducting a credible investigation of the allegations Leila Fadel included in her article published by NPR on April 15 (Civil Rights Org CAIR Accused Of Ignoring Alleged Misconduct : NPR). Below are two paragraphs from CAIR’s April 16 statement, updated May 7, the first of which I quoted in post number 10 (With Enough Lawyers, Lies, and Money – Reform CAIR).

[W]e want to be clear: sexual harassment is immoral, illegal, and absolutely unacceptable to us. After learning about the allegations in the [April 15] CAIR story, we reviewed our records, interviewed our staff, and confirmed that our office never received any complaints of sexual harassment, inside or outside of the workplace, against CAIR-Florida’s former Director….

As noted earlier, we are working with outside experts to strengthen our internal procedures in order to ensure that everyone within our network can always safely report misconduct, and to ensure that complaints are always handled appropriately at the local and national level.

If you contrast what you just read with how the Shibly meeting in 2016 actually went down, you may better understand why I said several posts ago that with CAIR’s April 16 statement and three bucks, you can get a coffee at Starbucks. (I have since been to Starbucks and learned that I lied. A large coffee costs $3.22, before a tip.)

Part Two: What the CAIR lawsuit has revealed

Pages 20 through 22 of Sister Lori’s response to the lawsuit filed against her by CAIR demonstrate that the CAIR leadership could not possibly have been in the dark regarding complaints of sexual abuse and harassment, as well as other types of misconduct and mismanagement by Hassan Shibly. Indeed, in 2016, while she was attempting to investigate the allegations against him, Shibly threatened Sister Lori with a cease and desist letter. (As I may discuss in a future post, Hassan Shibly is aggressive with his accusers.) As we will see in the second paragraph of the lengthy excerpt below, she came to the verge of resigning her position due to Executive Director Nihad Awad’s determination to bury those complaints rather than deal with them properly.

From pages 20 -22 of Lori Saroya’s response:

Mr. Awad “was unhappy that Ms. Saroya had repeatedly asked CAIR to investigate allegations into sexual assault and harassment and other forms of abuse by Hassan Shibly….Mr. Awad and his fellow leaders at CAIR opposed any investigations into the allegations into Shibly, and opposed taking any action at all regarding these egregious, and well-supported allegations. On July 16, 2016, Ms. Saroya indicated in an email to Mr. Awad that she intended to resign over CAIR’s refusal to take any action at all regarding the evidence of Shibly’s mistreatment of women and others. Two days later, Ms. Saroya informed IT Director Omar Ali that she intended to resign from CAIR and gave him instructions on handling her email account after her departure. She also wrote to Mr. Ali: ‘Good news for me—will never have to deal with Hassan Shibly again’ and ‘[Shibly’s] being allowed to host an [Executive Director] retreat when there are serious allegations against him. It’s not right and not fair to the other chapters who have no clue [about allegations of secret marriages and sexual misconduct against him].’ Mr. Awad begged Ms. Saroya not to resign, referring to her as his ‘friend’ and mentee, and, ultimately, she did not resign for another year and a half. She did not attend the ‘conflict resolution training’ that Mr. Awad had asked her to attend in response to her raising concerns about Shibly’s misconduct and the need for CAIR to hold him accountable for it.”

“Ms. Saroya admits that she received an email from Mr. Awad on or about August 4, 2017 complaining about what he described as issues with CAIR staff. In fact,however, these admonitions were because Ms. Saroya had raised issues about the evidence of unethical and potentially illegal conduct by Shibly in CAIR’s Florida office… Indeed, she had received a cease and desist demand from Shibly seeking to prevent her, in her role as CAIR Chapter Director, from investigating allegations of his ‘secret marriages’ and sexual exploitation of women –including women who attended CAIR events. Mr. Awad and, of course Shibly …were upset that Ms. Saroya stated that the evidence of misconduct…was sharply inconsistent with the values that CAIR held itself out as holding. Notably, it was during the same year that Mr. Awad pronounced Ms. Saroya ‘the best Chapter Development Director that CAIR has ever had or ever will have,’ and the same year that she was given a very positive review. Only 14 days after the ‘warning,’ Ms. Saroya received a promotion in title and pay raise. An August 18, 2017 email from Mr. Awad stated: ‘I am writing to let you know that based on your performance evaluation of 2016 and our discussion, we are raising your gross annual salary to $92,000… Your new title will be Chapter Director. We appreciate your hard work and dedication to CAIR.’ See Exhibit 3. And nine months later, in May 2018, Mr. Awad begged her not to resign from CAIR, and offered to give her a promotion if she agreed to stay.”

“Ms. Saroya admits that the August 4, 2017 email from Mr. Awad stated: ‘Sr. Lori, you are a valuable staff to our national team, but I am concerned that your interactions with other staff are crippling our ability to properly function as an organization, as interdepartmental cooperation is essential to the proper functioning of our organization.’ This statement reflected Mr. Awad’s clear desire that Ms. Saroya stay silent about the misconduct of Shibly…which he and certain others on the CAIR leadership team would have preferred to remain swept under the rug.”

“Ms. Saroya admits that Mr. Awad instructed her to attend a ‘conflict resolution training’ whose purpose, in effect, was to counsel Ms. Saroya that she should not be vocal about the misconduct or unethical behavior of top CAIR officials.”

From the account above, it is clear that plenty of the staff at CAIR National, not excluding Mr. Awad himself, were quite aware of allegations of sexual harassment and other forms of misconduct against Hassan Shibly in 2016, and were determined to keep them from the light of day. One woman accuser of Shibly repeatedly contacted CAIR in March of 2016, and only in July, at the insistence of Sr. Lori and the former legal director, did the meeting with Shibly happen. And you read in Part One how that went.

As I have noted before, CAIR National had three weeks to get their response of April 16, updated on May 7, to Leila Fadel’s article right, and did not. CAIR then had another six weeks to decide not to file a lawsuit intended to silence Sister Lori and continue the coverup. But CAIR’s instinct to retaliate prevailed.

The fact that Shibly resigned as head of CAIR-Florida does not resolve the matter. The CAIR National board owes it to Shibly’s victims and the Muslim community to conduct a full investigation of all of the allegations against him, principally his secret marriages and other sexual misconduct, by a panel the women bringing those allegations can trust, and to hold him accountable for any misdeeds while he was employed by and represented CAIR in any capacity.

Even more sticky for CAIR, but no less important, there should be a full investigation of the coverup of the Shibly matter, in the middle of which was the Executive Director of CAIR National himself. And the coverup has continued, obviously, up until the present day. In 2018 a representative of CAIR National learned more about the misconduct and mismanagement of Hassan Shibly, but nothing came of it. Instead, in something of a slap-in-the-face to many of the Florida staff, in 2020 CAIR National recognized CAIR-Florida as “Chapter of the Year.”

These investigations need to happen not simply to restore some integrity to CAIR, but also because of the real harm that is caused by the sort of behavior that is alleged. A fair number of women, and some men as well, who must have felt honored to be chosen to work for CAIR and undoubtedly had high expectations, were wounded and traumatized. So, of course, were some acquaintances of Hassan Shibly who were not employed by CAIR.

No doubt, there will be very strong resistance to the idea of a thorough accounting of misdeeds and housecleaning of CAIR; the chief concern will be what the Islamophobes might do with what is revealed. But the alternative, of taking CAIR at its word that it is committed to the highest standards and has matters under control, would be irresponsible, period. Muslims, just like any others, need to face the music at times. And CAIR and the Muslim community will be better for it.

With Enough Lawyers, Lies, and Money

In previous posts I mentioned a letter which CAIR National sent out on April 16, and which was updated on May 7, in response to Leila Fadel’s article which NPR published on April 15. As I have noted before, that letter contained blanket denials of misconduct by CAIR leaders and assertions that CAIR insists on the highest standards of conduct.

But the reality at CAIR is not like the letter claims. I begin this post with one example.

In 2016, there were allegations from a Muslim woman of inappropriate relationships by the married director of Florida CAIR, Hassan Shibly. That and subsequent allegations against Shibly comprised a large part of Leila Fadel’s article. Fadel notes that former employees of CAIR said the matter was reported to National CAIR and Florida CAIR officials, but there was little if any follow-up.

Not so, according to the April 16 CAIR letter:

[W]e want to be clear: sexual harassment is immoral, illegal, and absolutely unacceptable to us. After learning about the allegations in the CAIR story, we reviewed our records, interviewed our staff, and confirmed that our office never received any complaints of sexual harassment, inside or outside of the workplace, against CAIR-Florida’s former Director.

Well, CAIR National may not have receive a complaint of “sexual harassment” per se against Shibly. But CAIR was told of Shibly’s sexual misconduct and abuse beginning as early as 2016. Executive Director Nihad Awad sided with Shibly and the woman making the allegations was not so much as interviewed by anyone on the CAIR staff.

When allegations of misconduct by Shibly were taken to the CAIR Florida board of directors, the bearers of bad news were told: “Hassan’s the executive director. He has all the relationships with donors,” as Fadel reported.

Far from being “totally unacceptable” in the minds of CAIR leaders, sexual harassment and worse are things to keep from the light of day, not things to properly investigate, lest the Islamophobes find out and use it to attack CAIR. Indeed, CAIR leaders are quite liberal using the Islamophobe card to try to stifle criticism of its operations.

The other card they use is the Donor card, as the Florida board did to avoid confronting Shibly on the allegations.

With enough donors and lawyers, the top guys at CAIR must suppose they can neutralize truth, make it irrelevant. How else can you explain the discrepancy between official CAIR declarations and the reality?

Now, the other day I went back to Fadel’s article and noticed some items in blue letters in the righthand column. Someone once showed me that if you click on blue words, things can happen. So I clicked on a couple of those, and I think I got more insight into how the American Muslim community deals with, or fails to deal with, allegations of misconduct.

As I noted above, the Islamophobe card is the first resort of anyone trying to stifle an honest accounting of misconduct. Many years ago I was a big supporter of the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, and one day it dawned on me that maybe they were content to be under attack by the contras and their American backers, as it helped keep a lid on dissent. I did not switch sides, but I began arguing, to the annoyance of many friends who remained more sympathetic to the Sandinistas, that this was one more reason to oppose U.S. military aid to the contras.

Similarly, this fear of Islamophobes exploiting controversy in the Muslim community helps keep gender discrimination and worse entrenched. It helps keep Muslim women, in many situations, second class.

And as all Muslims know, as I have acknowledged but not felt too constrained by, Muslims don’t like to be calling each other out for their transgressions. This advice comes from the Qur’an, of course, and it jives with the broader idea that we should not judge each other much, lest we commit hypocrisy in doing so.

But when there are real victims to transgression, then the “judge not” precept comes into stark tension with the Qur’anic directive to stand against injustice no matter who the perpetrator is. To “stand against” an injustice, is it enough to privately agree with someone that it is wrong?

I think we all know the answer.

CAIR Betrays its Mission and its Donors

Sixth in a Series

I try to keep up on the daily news from CAIR, most of which these days is about Palestine and Israel, of course. And naturally I more or less agree with CAIR’s positions and recommended actions on the subject. Amidst all of that, I keep hoping to find some announcement that CAIR has decided to clean up its own house. I have not yet seen it.

Indeed, learning that CAIR has initiated a defamation lawsuit against former employee Lori Saroya suggests that the good ol’ boys at CAIR are not likely to come clean all by themselves.

The injustice Israel has been perpetrating against the Palestinians and the alleged injustices inside CAIR are obviously not comparable in their human impact. And the gender discrimination, sexual harassment and abuse, retaliation, union busting, etc., which has been alleged against CAIR may yet be all too common in the United States.

But do either of those two considerations justify for one minute the failure of CAIR to fairly address the allegations, or for the hesitancy of the American Muslim community to insist on it? Is it not enough that many women have left CAIR disillusioned, hurt, and even “broken,” and some have left the community and even Islam?

What I have been discussing in this series of essays is not news to many Muslim leaders. With every passing day of silence from them, their complicity in the corruption at CAIR grows a little bit more.

At CAIR, allegations against men coming from women appear to be automatically suspect, the women deserving of retaliation. Though CAIR is a human rights organization, not a court of law, an accused man is given every benefit of the doubt. Non-disclosure agreements are used in an attempt to keep buried some very incriminating stuff. (We saw a perfect example of that today.) CAIR management is capable of downright shameful behavior to head off any loss of control in the organization, and the board of directors until now has been unable or unwilling to exercise oversight.

To reiterate one very revealing episode I wrote about in the first post of this series, when CAIR employees sought to form a union in the fall of 2016, CAIR management tried to convince the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that CAIR was organized and operated exclusively for religious, educational and charity purposes, not as the civil rights and advocacy organization everyone knows it is.

CAIR management made this preposterous argument in the hope of not having to accept an employees’ union, and all the ways that would cramp its style. When CAIR management lost that case, and the regional director scheduled another vote by which the employees would be able to decide once and for all if they really wanted to unionize, the top bros made sure that vote would never happen.

I have called for three concrete steps by the CAIR National board of directors. First, to establish a credible panel and process to investigate the allegations, one approved by the former employees and board members making the allegations. Second, to lift all non-disclosure agreements with these individuals so they may speak with investigators without fear of legal repercussions. Third, to welcome the unionization of CAIR employees.

Some of the former employees who have brought allegations have called for the immediate resignation of the executive director and the chair of the National board, and certainly in the case of the first they are on solid ground. (Please visit their website: wecair.net.)

In my last post I argued that the American Muslim community can learn from the Tuskegee Airmen of World War Two, who knew they could not succeed by merely matching the competency of white bomber escort crews. Being black, the Tuskegee Airmen knew they would have to raise the bar. And they did.

America can learn a lot from Islam. But it won’t learn anything if Muslim organizations like CAIR and the Muslim community cannot summon the humility and courage, and dare I say the proper fear of Allah, to decisively raise the bar on gender equality. For its day, Islam was progressive on the matter of women’s rights. Given that social conditions and constraints are very different today in the United States then they were in Arabia fourteen hundred years ago, why can’t Islam be progressive on women’s rights once again?

Few of my readers will doubt that CAIR management is on the right side of justice when it comes to Palestine and Israel. Unfortunately, its voice on that critical issue is compromised by the fact that women remain second-class at CAIR, while management and the National board paint a rosy picture to the contrary. The high number of women employees does not offset the endemic gender problems.

If you are a woman, the work environment at CAIR can be toxic—quite ironic for a civil rights organization–as different women have discovered. In its current unrepentant state, vividly on display today, CAIR is a stain on the Muslim community. And that stain is only going to grow until the National board finds its way to taking charge.

I realize that much of what I have been discussing is very disconcerting for Muslims especially. But we are all bound to advance social justice wherever we can, and that is rarely accomplished without some affliction of the comfortable. The point of it all, however, is to provide comfort—and actual redress—to the afflicted.

I had drafted most of this post before I learned that CAIR saw fit to sue Lori Saroya. That ill-conceived move leaves one wondering if the leadership of CAIR knows only one way to operate. As Lori posted on Facebook: “Through the courts, I’ll be forced to expose things at CAIR that I had no intention of ever making public. #CAIR has launched a real boomerang by filing this lawsuit.”

If you are bothered at all by CAIR using some of its zakat money to try to intimidate Sister Lori, please consider donating to her legal defense fund. I hope to have more details in my next post.

CAIR’s Denials, American Muslims, and the Tuskegee Airmen

Fifth in a Series

In my last post I briefly discussed the April 16 letter from the CAIR National board responding to Leila Fadel’s article published by NPR the previous day. Reflecting on how that letter continued with the same sort of categorical denials contained in Fadel’s article, it is pretty clear the board is not presently capable of taking charge when it needs to.

With the growing concern about what is going on at CAIR, that is precisely what needs to happen, with no more delay.

As Fateh Tumia of Boulder put it bluntly: “We can continue ducking down and pretend that everything is honky dory as we always do and let the national CAIR maintain denial, or [we can] face reality, investigate the issues brought in the allegations and clear up the mud surrounding the organization once and for all.”

Former employees and board members who are associated with wecair.net, who are calling for the resignation of the chair of the national board as well as the executive director of CAIR, are obviously much more knowledgeable about the internal dynamics of the organization than am I. But I have seen enough to conclude that certainly structural change is called for, and quite likely personnel change as well.

I have learned that a number of CAIR leaders, notably those from Chicago and Philadelphia, have been calling for a change at the top for years. They believe that moving from the “largest” to the “leading Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization” requires new, competent leadership.

I have also learned that the national leadership has stepped in to reverse decisions of local chapters. A case in Dallas was especially heavy-handed. If diversity of faith affiliations and perspectives was truly valued at the top, CAIR National should have welcomed the Dallas chapter’s choice for Executive Director.

In another case, a chapter Executive Director who was wheelchair bound was ridiculed and considered visually offensive to the CAIR brand. She was ousted by National, and is still owed thousands of dollars of salary. One CAIR official said of her: “There’s nothing wrong with her, she’s in a wheelchair because she’s fat.”

To reiterate, the day has come for the board to step up and exercise true oversight. For starters, the executive director of CAIR should not be a voting member of the board.

If the board cannot make that minor change, or if that does not lead to the board appointing a credible panel to investigate allegations, then we will have to spill the beans to donors. That should do it.

American Muslims can take inspiration from the legendary Tuskegee Airmen of World War Two, the all-black crews which escorted and defended American bomber crews. The Airmen knew from the outset of their training that it would not do to be every bit as good as white escort crews. Being black, they had two strikes against them. They would have to be better than the others. Indeed, in time white bomber crews specifically requested them for missions.

CAIR is not unique in gender discrimination and mismanagement. But Muslims in America have at least one strike against them. All the more reason why the Muslim community must insist that CAIR bring itself up to model standards in gender equality and management. Some might not think it is quite fair that CAIR must do this. But the times and the political reality demand it.

And in terms of organizational morale and retention of employees, meeting the highest standards will not hurt CAIR one mote’s worth.