The Council on American-Islamic Relations has been accused of "inappropriate conduct" and "abuse of women" by a former senior leader in a new lawsuit.
Lori Saroya, a member of the Blaine, Minnesota, City Council and a former senior leader with CAIR from 2007 to 2018, filed a lawsuit against the group earlier this week in federal court, according to the Star Tribune, in response to a press release from January 2022 in which the CAIR national board accused Saroya of harassing the group's employees and spreading "Islamophobic tropes and conspiracy theories" about CAIR.
The group filed a federal defamation lawsuit against Saroya at the time but later dismissed it.
In a civil complaint this week, attorney Steven Kerbaugh, who is representing Saroya, described the allegations made by CAIR in the press release as "outrageously false."
The complaint adds that CAIR made the statement "as part of a concerted effort to blacken her reputation, destroy her credibility, and silence her and others who have raised serious concerns about CAIR's abuse of women, dishonest practices, and violations of civil rights, among others."
Saroya told the Star Tribune in a statement that the lawsuit illustrates CAIR's "unfortunate record of sanctioning and indulging serious allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination within its organization, retaliating against women who raise these issues and engaging in profoundly dishonest conduct vis a vis the public, the Muslim-American Community and even its own Board."
She added, "CAIR's defamatory statements about me were intended to intimidate not just me but others like me. The purpose of this lawsuit is to hold CAIR and its leadership to account — something which has been much too long in coming."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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