Reform CAIR

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.

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.

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.

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.

First in a Series

This Ramadan, Muslims are doing what they have always done during this special month: striving to grow in faith, and be better Muslims. This Ramadan coincided with the trial and conviction of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd. May that conviction be the beginning of long, long overdue change.

 When we name an evil or an injustice, like racism, we have a responsibility to search our own hearts for any trace of it. Being human, we are adept at explaining our own shortcomings as something else. One who never imagined himself to be racist per se may yet divide the world into two kinds of people, one inherently more deserving of Allah’s love than the other.

But even more challenging for us, as Muslims, is our obligation to confront injustice regardless of who is perpetrating it.

On April 15, in the final days of the Floyd murder trial, NPR published an article by Leila Fadel, who had been covering events in Minneapolis, concerning allegations of gender and religious discrimination, sexual harassment and misconduct, hostile working conditions, retaliation, and general mismanagement in the national and several local offices of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Her sources were former employees and board members of CAIR. (see: Civil Rights Org CAIR Accused Of Ignoring Alleged Misconduct : NPR)

Leila Fadel is highly credentialed, and neither she nor NPR would lightly air such allegations in a time when Islamophobia is still alive and well. The article contains denial after denial of impropriety by CAIR officials and spokespersons, the categorical nature of which seems to lend credence to the testimony of many women who once felt honored to work for CAIR.

Aslam Abdullah, scholar and editor of the Muslim Observer, told Fadel that these women do not trust that CAIR will address their grievances in a fair manner, and many have refused to cooperate with an investigation currently being conducted by an employment law attorney associated with CAIR, according to one former employee.  Abdullah regards as credible many allegations of “harassment, sexual misconduct or unfair treatment by senior men within CAIR or CAIR affiliates,” according to Fadel. (For some of these women’s testimonies and their proposed reform of CAIR, go to: WE CAIR – Coalition for Accountability & Islah-Reform)

Thus, it appears quite possible that CAIR, an organization whose mission is to defend the civil rights of Muslims and others facing discrimination, has violated the rights of many of its own employees, or failed to address such violations by certain CAIR officials. This is putting it very safely.

No doubt, there is a wide range of Muslim views on the matter of gender equality. But there should be no debate when it comes to CAIR, whose tenth and final Core Principle reads: “CAIR supports equal and complementary rights and responsibilities for men and women.” Not only are women at CAIR entitled to equal treatment and opportunities as men. As well, men are obligated to respect their dignity.

Fadel’s article only touches on CAIR management’s suppression of an attempt by employees to unionize in 2016-17, and its retaliatory conduct afterward. This was not American Islam’s finest hour.

It is beyond dispute that CAIR presents itself as a civil rights organization first and foremost. Indeed, in every press release by CAIR national, we read that CAIR is “the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.” Yet, in opposing the establishment of a union, CAIR management spent thousands and thousands of donor dollars to persuade the National Labor Relations Board of something that would surprise every one of those donors, that it is “organized and operated exclusively for religious, education and charitable purposes,” and was thus not obligated to bargain with its employees collectively.

CAIR’s attorney literally argued that requiring the organization to engage in collective bargaining would “compromise [its] constitutional free exercise of religion.” The Board decided in favor of the employees and scheduled a (second) vote to determine if they wanted to unionize (National Labor Relations Board, Case 05-RC-186732).

But the vote never took place; the seven union organizers were gone by then. “All of the employees leading the effort to unionize were treated horribly,” according to the same former employee cited above. “Some broke and resigned. Others were terminated, or forced to resign in exchange for hefty severance packages and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to silence them. These individuals have gone through trauma. Some left Islam or the Muslim community.”

Muslims know that the Most Merciful sides with the disadvantaged, and the National Labor Relations Act is based on the premise that absent government regulation, employers enjoy an unfair advantage over employees. To maintain, as CAIR did, that requiring it to accept collective bargaining would compromise Islam is hardly worthy of the faith. Indeed, it barters revelation for a trivial gain.

CAIR has championed many, many victims of injustice. None of that work is diminished by the allegations of its mistreatment of employees. But neither those many accomplishments, nor the clear need for organizations like CAIR to persevere, can justify American Muslims overlooking a glaring injustice by CAIR itself, if indeed these allegations pan out.

The only way for the Muslim community to know which allegations are valid is for CAIR to agree to a review by an impartial panel, acceptable to those who have made allegations of impropriety, which can investigate all such claims, with all NDAs waived. The panel should be empowered to make public its findings as well as recommendations for structural reform and personnel changes at CAIR.

Immediately, CAIR management should reverse itself on the right of employees to unionize, and cooperate fully in that project.

In the name of Allah, who knows all that is revealed and all that is concealed, CAIR is due for a fair and thorough investigation. The organization, and the American Muslim community, will emerge better for it.

               If you attend a mosque, please share this essay and the sample letter below with fellow congregants, and urge your leadership to send the same or a similar letter to CAIR National and affiliated chapters. Please share it also with any friends elsewhere who might be interested. You may comment on either item below.

To the National Board of Directors of the Council on American-Islamic Relations:

We, members of the Shura of the Islamic Center of _____________, appreciate the vital civil rights work CAIR has done for American Muslims since 1994. When Muslims face discrimination and mistreatment, they know where to turn.

Recently, we have been troubled by allegations of unfair treatment of women, sexual harassment, anti-union policies, as well as insufficient oversight and accountability at some regional CAIR chapters and the national office, as reported by Leila Fadel of National Public Radio on April 15, 2021. Fadel is an accomplished journalist, and her sources include former employees and board members of CAIR, and qualified individuals who are familiar with such concerns over the years.

With anti-Muslim incidents still common in the United States, the timing of such reports is not ideal for CAIR. Nevertheless, Allah knows all that is revealed and all that is concealed, and to strive for justice in this world is as incumbent upon Muslims as is the certainty of justice in the world to come. These concerns deserve a fair hearing by a credible, independent panel, acceptable to those known to have made allegations of impropriety.

Such a panel should be free to investigate any and all concerns by former and current employees and board members, and to make recommendations to you, the board of directors, for both personnel and structural changes, to guarantee a secure and positive work environment for all and equal opportunities for women in the organization.

We urge you to appoint a panel for this purpose and to lift all non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) so that former and present employees and board members can speak freely with the panel without threat of legal retaliation.

With no further delay, we urge you to reverse course on an employees’ union, and cooperate fully. It is quite unbecoming of a civil rights organization to oppose unionizing efforts of its own employees.

We reiterate that we regard the work of CAIR to be very important, and for CAIR to remain a credible champion of civil rights it must be fully transparent and willing to make the necessary changes to retain the trust of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.