Fear of discovery.
“CAIR Drops Lawsuit Against Whistleblower,” IPT News, January 10, 2022:
A former employee who alleged rampant sexual discrimination and harassment inside the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was using “disturbingly false allegations” in a “systemic and continuous internet smear campaign” to get people to stop donating to, or working with the organization, CAIR said in a lawsuit filed last spring.
Lori Saroya’s “public lies are damaging CAIR and the American Muslim community in ways that are significant and long lasting,” CAIR’s lawsuit claimed. But CAIR may have seen that damage as less harmful than a discovery process which could expose organizational secrets.
CAIR abruptly filed a stipulation to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled, on Friday. CAIR had told the federal court in Minnesota that it would file an amended complaint by then.
Throughout the fall, the two sides fought over CAIR’s refusal to answer a series of defense interrogatories. While CAIR claimed it had provided much of the information, some requests “were interposed solely to annoy, oppress, harass and unduly burden CAIR.”
The resulting discovery, Saroya’s attorneys argued, would show she was not lying about “sexual harassment, gender discrimination, retaliation against those who raised these issues, gross financial mismanagement, disregard of basic governance requirements and duplicity about its raising of foreign funds, and at whether CAIR has been disingenuous with its Board, donors, chapters and volunteers, as well as the Muslim community at large.”
For example, CAIR objected to her request for internal investigative reports involving misconduct within CAIR’s national chapters because they “are distinct from the National organization.”
But Saroya already produced a sampling of internal communications which challenged CAIR’s assertion. In her initial response to CAIR’s lawsuit, Saroya claimed that Executive Director Nihad Awad nixed the Dallas chapter’s decision to hire a non-Muslim to run the chapter. Awad “found her to be not pro-Palestine enough and [indicated] that her writing on domestic violence was ‘vulgar and disgusting.'”
Awad “threatened to dis-affiliate” the Dallas chapter if the job offer was not rescinded.
To keep the incident from becoming public, a CAIR staff attorney suggested paying the applicant $10,000 in two payments spaced five months apart, “with a non-disclosure agreement.”
“The most serious risk she presents right now is in the form of public pressure and defamatory speech against” the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter, Danette Zaghari-Mask wrote.
CAIR, Saroya’s response claimed, “spends substantial amounts of donors’ money in order to threaten, intimidate and sue those who have the courage to speak about CAIR’s culture of discrimination and misogyny,” and pay settlements in exchange for their silence.
While CAIR denies this claim, National Public Radio reported last spring that it spoke with “18 former employees at the national office and several prominent chapters who said there was a general lack of accountability when it came to perceived gender bias, religious bias or mismanagement. Many of those interviewed, both men and women, asked NPR not to use their names for fear of legal or professional retaliation.”
Saroya ran CAIR’s Minnesota chapter before moving to Washington to work as its chapter development director.
In a Facebook post Sunday, Saroya said it was clear that CAIR “dropped its lawsuit before it was forced to produce the documents that demonstrated the truth of what many of us have been saying about the organization, and before its officers and board members had to answer questions, under oath, from my attorneys.”
“There should be no mistake about what happened here,” she added. “The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) tried to silence those of us who have spoken out, and to frighten others into silence.
“But CAIR failed. It lost. We won.”…
Wellington says
A Muslim organization which engaged in sexual harassment and discrimination? How can that be? Islam, you know, honors women and that’s why 72 virgins are supplied to Muslim males in heaven, why it takes two women to equal one man’s testimony, why four witnesses are required for a woman to prove rape, and why good women are obedient and cover themselves and why if a man fears disobedience from his women he needs to admonish them, send them to beds apart and beat them (Sura 4:34).
You know, perhaps the best way to ensure that Islam finally meets its fully deserved demise is to get the female gender away from Mo’s creed as much as possible. Lose women and you pretty much have lost the fight. An efficacious approach I think. After all, high theory here, if no female were willingly Muslim, how long do you think Islam could last?
Infidel says
And yet muslim women are some of the most loyal soldiers of jihad. Whether it’s the Pali fidayeen, or in India, where muslimahs enable their men to traffic in non-muslim girls and women, usually below the age of 21. No, muslimahs are some of the most vile enablers of islam, despite that ‘religion’ having nothing for them
Westman says
I would consider it social extortion that keeps a woman in Islam, when an adult. She has little status and freedom – Muslim gays and transgenders having NO status except expulsion. Criticism of Islam can cause a Muslim woman anything from beatings and loss of children, to death. She cannot marry outside of Islam without danger to her partner and herself in a Muslim nation. There is no realistic way for a woman to be free of Islam in a poor Muslim nation. Of course, she will support her society despite her personal feelings rather than accept social and/or physical death – no mystery.
While growing up a Muslim girl is either told she is not equal to a man in Allah’s eyes or will perceive it by observation and experience. It will be similar to Stockholm Syndrome where a captive becomes fond of the captor. Mothers will compensate for a father’s attitude toward females.
mortimer says
I second Infidel’s remarks: Muslimahs are self-brainwashed with the Islamic Stockholm syndrome.
Summary: The Islamic Stockholm syndrome occurs in Muslim women who grow up as virtual hostages, and develop positive feelings toward their captors.
They simultaneously develop negative feelings toward the very people (kafirs) who want to liberate them from the oppression and misogyny of Islam.
Finally, the Muslim male captors develop positive feelings toward their female hostages in a confusing complicity and conspiracy against the demonized kafir seen by the Muslim men and women as their common enemies.
Liberation from Islam is seen as a trick by Muslim women and so they resist all attempts to liberate them.
One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Islamic Stockholm Syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the Muslim female victim’s response to traumatization by male Muslims. By identifying with the thuggish JIHADIST aggressors, a Muslim female defends her ego and self from annihilation.
When a MUSLIM WOMAN believes the same values as the SAVAGE, HEARTLESS MUSLIM MALE, she ceases to be a counter-threat to Islam’s misogyny or the male supremacist ego. She becomes a co-victimizer of other women.
mortimer says
CAIR is behaving as Islam also has in the past … it is a deceitful, conspiratorial, chauvinistic supremacist cabal.
Saroya got mugged by the reality of what Islam truly is. She is SHOCKED, SHOCKED!
https://mukashafat.com/lori-haidri-mystery-solved-how-lori-soraya-got-mugged-by-cairs-reality/
Quote: An organization that bills itself “the nation’s leading Muslim civil rights advocacy group” is itself a major abuser of civil rights – and many of its members choose to remain silent in the face of injustice.
Saroya said, “I was with CAIR for nearly 12 years in various roles: chapter founder, chapter executive director, national board member, and national chapter director. I witnessed gender and religious #discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, hostile work environment, union busting, financial mismanagement, lack of board oversight, board incompetence, and other serious issues at #CAIR.”
But Lori discovered silence in response: “Chapters are very capable of standing up for justice, but they look the other way and do nothing when their national leaders are the perpetrators of injustice.”
https://mukashafat.com/lori-haidri-mystery-solved-how-lori-soraya-got-mugged-by-cairs-reality/
RP says
CAIR bills itself as a
“the nation’s leading Muslim civil rights advocacy group”
To promote Islam cause only.
No matter what?
somehistory says
Yes, they had to drop the suit or expose themselves fully in Court, which would have proven the charges against them are true, including where a lot of their funding originates and where a lot of their money is spent.
All of the members should be charged with extortion.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Now that CAIR has put this lawsuit behind it, maybe they can give attention to this inquiry I wrote last week to Ibrahim Hooper (ihooper) at cair.com :
I was unable to find any How to Join instructions at your main website cair.com,
so I call upon you for this information.
(1) How does one join the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)?
(2) Is there a membership fee, and if so, how much is it?
(3) Are there any restrictions on who may join CAIR (age, sexual orientation, Muslim/kafir status, etc.)?
(4) By joining, will I acquire a vote in setting CAIR policy?
Westman says
Amusing.
Keith O says
A pity the case was dropped.
Court proceedings would have been entertaining to say the least!
Lack of cair’s lawsuit was a cynical attempt to frighten her into silence.
Emilie Green says
You’ll only win if you file a lawsuit against CAIR for having filed this vexatious lawsuit in the first place. And CAIR pays to settle or you get a judgment from a jury.
gregbeetham says
The defence might have ‘won’ but CAIR still managed to largely keep from public gaze the fetid internal culture they have.
notnolib says
CAIR is a terror organization. Its members, its officer, and its supporters are terrorists.
It’s weird. They worship a made-up moon-god invented by mohammed, the pig-faced dog false prophet of (p)islam. He shat the contents of the terror guide, the koran, into the arabian sands.
James Lincoln says
So, will Lori Saroya now counter-sue CAIR?