Female Staff Quits Arab-American Civil Rights Group in Protest Over Sexual Harassment
All of the women who worked in the national office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) resigned this week in protest of the group’s recent dismissal of its national communications director after he spoke out against sexual harassment, according to current and former ADC members.
The ADC also has put on probation its national president, Warren David, and is pressuring him to resign.
Four women who worked for the ADC in Washington, D.C., had gone on strike Oct. 21 after the ADC fired Raed Jarrar, who had been its national communications director and was critical of how the group dealt with sexual harassment allegations against the former Michigan director, Imad Hamad.
Jarrar said ADC officials told him on Oct. 18 that he was being laid off effective immediately in a “restructuring.”
“I believe my firing was in retaliation for questioning the ADC’s sexual harassment policies and how it handled the recent sexual harassment investigation,” Jarrar told the Free Press on Friday. “I intend to file official complaints” with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.
Jarrar said that he and the four women who worked there had spoken up and written letters criticizing the leadership of the ADC for not being transparent and accountable with the harassments complaints from other women, who said Hamad harassed or assaulted them. The chairman of the ADC’s national board, Dr. Safa Rifka, then threatened to fire the employees, according to current and former members. Despite facing pressure from Rifka, David refused to retaliate against the five employees.
Jarrar said he was fired shortly before the close of business on a Friday.
The following Monday, Oct. 21, the four women stopped showing up for work in protest, said Jarrar and former ADC members. The women never returned to work and resigned on Wednesday. Meanwhile, David, a native of Northville, has had his hiring and firing rights stripped.
The developments are the latest challenges facing the biggest civil rights group for Arab Americans. The five employees made up more than half of the ADC’s national staff. In Dearborn, its Michigan office canceled an annual dinner honoring metro Detroit judges for the first time since the dinner started in 2002. It had been scheduled for Oct. 10.
“It pains me as a former ADC member to see it completely abandon its spirit of civil rights by failing to make a strong statement against sexual harassment,” said Will Youmans, a Detroit native who is assistant professor at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. “Its light-handed approach sends the wrong message.”
Youmans is one of eight current or former ADC members who wrote a letter published on two Arab websites that said Jarrar was fired and that the women had gone on strike in protest. One of the signatories was Nadine Naber, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who used to teach at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Their letter criticized ADC’s leadership.
The letter said the dismissal of Jarrar and punishment of David was ordered by Rifka.
Rifka did not return calls seeking comment.
Reached by the Free Press on Friday, David did not comment.
Abed Ayoub, who had been named the ADC’s interim director of its Michigan office and is national director of legal and policy affairs, and the ADC’s vice-president Nabil Mohamad did not return calls seeking comment. Hamad’s attorney, Shereef Akeel, did not comment.
The Free Press first reported the allegations June 1 after state Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, and former ADC leader Rana Abbas came forward with sexual harassment complaints against Hamad. They said Hamad harassed at least 15 women. After an outcry from Arab Americans, ADC then placed Hamad on leave and said it would launch an investigation.
ADC upset Tlaib, Abbas, and others by keeping Hamad on staff as an adviser after the investigation was done. ADC said there was “insufficient evidence” to find Hamad did anything wrong. ADC leaders had investigated and reprimanded Hamad in 2007 for sexual harassment, asking him to watch a video about sexual harassment, but kept him on staff and raised his salary.
Niraj Warikoo
Detroit Free Press