Muslim civil rights group notes this is the third time this year that the Murdoch-owned outlet has had to correct a biased article.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today announced that it has compelled The New York Post to correct another article that made false and misleading claims about the Muslim civil rights group, the third time this year that the paper has had to correct an article about CAIR.
In a statement, CAIR said:
“In its rush to fan the flames of anti-Muslim bigotry, The New York Post keeps publishing demonstrably false articles about CAIR and the American Muslim community. We are warning the Post that this pattern must come to an end. Rupert Murdoch and The New York Post have every right to embrace anti-Muslim hate, but they do not have the right to blatantly and clumsily lie about American Muslim activists, politicians or institutions. “
On November 18, the Post published a front page article claiming that CAIR-California had “awarded $1,000 cash grants to university students as a reward for disrupting classes and intimidating and harassing fellow students while celebrating Hamas’ October 7th attack.” The article even claimed that CAIR-California had raised specific amounts of money in multiple California cities. None of this was true.
In reality, CAIR-California was not involved in any funding for students, nor did any CAIR office fund campus anti-genocide protests. After the encampment protests ended, CAIR’s national office and another nonprofit group launched a scholarship fund for students pursuing legal careers who wrongly lost career or educational opportunities because of their peaceful activism on college campuses.
In response to a demand letter from CAIR, The New York Post eventually edited the article to remove all references to CAIR-California, but did not include a notice alerting readers to any changes to the article, as mainstream media outlets would normally do.
CAIR notes that this is the third time the Post has had to correct an article about CAIR this year. Last month, the Murdoch-owned outlet was forced to correct an article that had falsely claimed that Washington, D.C., based CAIR had funded the Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign.
In another article published the day before the 2025 mayoral election, The New York Post falsely claimed that CAIR was one of the “single biggest backers” of the Mamdani campaign, among other blatantly false statements. As a 501c3 nonprofit organization, CAIR does not endorse, donate to, or otherwise support any political campaigns.
After CAIR sent a demand letter to The New York Post noting that the allegation of campaign funding was false and completely unsupported by the content of the article, the Post changed to story to remove the false claim and fix several other misstatements, including misidentification of a CAIR official and a false claim that CAIR had not provided a comment for the story.
In an earlier article, the Post reported and later removed the false claim that CAIR had provided “financial” support to its client Mahmoud Khalil and “anti-Israel agitators” on college campuses. CAIR represented Khalil and other students in a lawsuit against Columbia University, but never provided financial support for campus protests.
That article also misidentified a former CAIR official’s role, incorrectly claimed that CAIR had not provided a comment on the story, and failed to note that CAIR had rebutted bigoted and misleading attacks that anti-Muslim elected officials Tom Cotton and Elise Stefanik had levelled against the organization, which the article repeated at length. The updated article addresses those factual issues, but still contains numerous biased, opinionated smears and does not contain a note acknowledging the changes, as mainstream media outlets usually include.
CAIR is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and America’s largest Muslim civil-rights organization. Its mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, CAIR does not endorse or oppose candidates for office and makes no claims as to the favorability of one candidate being elected over another.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com