CAIR-Texas: State education board finalizes anti-Islamic rewrite of Texas social studies lessons – Texas Tribune
“The board has turned our classrooms into a place where prejudice is taught as fact and entire communities are written out of their own history,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Texas chapter wrote in a statement. “This is not only a Muslim issue, a Black issue, or a Palestinian issue — it is a Texas issue, because a board willing to do this to one community can do it to any community next.”
CAIR: Texas education board approves controversial new social studies curriculum for public high schools – ABC
CAIR: I covered religion after the 9/11 attacks. I never imagined the hate would outlast the war. – Religion News Service
CAIR-NY: How post-9/11 Islamophobia sparked a Muslim political awakening in NYC – Gothamist
CAIR-MI: The Far Right Goes Into Overdrive in Michigan – New Lines Magazine
CAIR: 25 years after 9/11, many Muslims fear a new backlash – USA Today
In the days after 9/11, then-President George W. Bush made public statements defending Islam and differentiating the faith from the attack.
He quoted from the Quran and said “Islam is peace” during remarks at the Islamic Center of Washington, DC. Bush also met with Islamic leaders, including Nihad Awad, national executive director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR was established in 1994 and is the country’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization.
Though Awad disagreed with many of Bush’s policy positions, he told USA TODAY he saw “sincerity” and “openness” from Bush, a desire for unity amid the devastation.
CAIR: 25 years after Sept. 11 attacks, Muslims are still navigating the backlash – WGBH
For Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, reflecting on the anti-Muslim backlash still brings powerful emotions.
Amatul-Wadud, now executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, remembers running for Congress years ago. She wanted her campaign to focus on issues like healthcare policy and the cost of daycare. Instead, she faced threats of violence and false accusations that she wanted to enact Islamic Sharia law. She felt the need to explain to people that she was more than a Muslim woman wearing a hijab.
“It was very painful,” Amatul-Wadud said. “Every day, I woke up and I was having to humanize myself … I was very much burdened to have to almost seek permission to be standing in that room asking for their vote. No other candidate has that burden.”
CAIR: American Muslims Organize in the Face of Rising Islamophobia – Foreign Policy in Focus
Video: CAIR, CAIR-Chicago Back Resolution Seeking Accountability for Alderman’s Anti-Muslim Posts
CAIR: San Diego County man accused of threatening Temecula mosque – Orange County Register
CAIR-CA: Campus protest rules bill barely clears the Legislature. What was the debate? – Merced Sun-Star
In a 2025 report, the Council on American-Islamic Relations-California — a sponsor of AB 2551 — raised concerns over the newly strengthened campus protest restrictions, especially given what it called “targeted enforcement” of the existing policies. The report said several California universities used law enforcement disproportionately in response to pro-Palestinian protests when compared with other events that violated the same policies.
CAIR-Chicago: Local victims, heroes of 9/11 remembered 25 years later – Chicago Tribune
A movement grew nationwide and locally to encourage more reporting and documentation of incidents, recalled Sufyan Sohel, senior adviser and general counsel for the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
CAIR: ‘We Cannot Normalize a Genocide’: Artists Boycott Festival Headlined by Seinfeld – Palestine Chronicle