A legal battle between one of the nation's most prominent Muslim advocacy groups and one of its former senior officials threatens to escalate allegations of sexual misconduct and reveal details of the organization's internal workings.
Why it matters: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a large and influential civil rights group. Its defamation lawsuit against former board member and senior executive Lori Saroya poses some major reputational risks.
Background: The lawsuit, filed in May, accuses Saroya of running a multi-year campaign to defame CAIR and cut off its sources of financial support.
- Saroya resigned from the group in 2018, and has since accused its leadership of participating in or attempting to cover up sexual misconduct, discrimination and financial improprieties.
- She vehemently denies CAIR's defamation allegations. In an answer to the lawsuit, Soraya went into detail about the “sexual harassment, gender discrimination, corruption and mismanagement” she says she witnessed.
- She also published some internal CAIR communications and documents. They showed the group considered paying $10,000 to an ex-employee if she agreed not to publicize allegations — disputed by CAIR — that she was denied a leadership post because she was not Muslim.
- Other documents revealed internal concerns from CAIR's New York chapter that the national organization was violating legal ethics rules.
What's new: CAIR is trying to prevent further disclosure of such internal records as the lawsuit approaches trial....
- The organization filed a letter with the court last week asking for a protective order ensuring the confidentiality of sensitive records filed during the lawsuit.
- "CAIR has reason to believe that Saroya will publish CAIR’s confidential