CAIR’s legal work changed my life; let it change yours, too.
Dear Friend of CAIR-Philadelphia,
My name is Adam Attia and I’m the Legal Director at CAIR-Philadelphia. Working with CAIR has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I want to share my work with you and invite you to join the fight.
Until recently, I was working as a private attorney, but I kept seeing others encountering anti-Muslim discrimination and Islamophobia and felt increasingly frustrated. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough to help my community. I couldn’t be at peace without using my education and professional experience in the fight for equality and justice for my fellow Muslims. That’s when I joined the team at CAIR-Philadelphia.
At CAIR-Philadelphia, our legal team takes on the injustices our Muslim communities face every day and helps ordinary people fight for their rights. Some of our work is high profile civil rights and employment discrimination cases. But most of our cases reflect the mundane everyday discrimination so many of us have faced. Right now, for example, we’re standing up for a courageous Palestinian American woman who was unjustly arrested while exercising her right to free speech by protesting at her alma mater. University police arrested her and turned her over to the Philadelphia Police, who violated her human rights by forcing her to remove her hijab during booking and remain without it for nearly a full day while jailed. CAIR-Philadelphia is taking legal action to ensure our community member is compensated and long-term changes are made.
Unfortunately, this case is not unusual. In the past year, we at CAIR-Philadelphia have seen a 300% increase in demand for our legal services. And we expect the need to rise even more in the next four years. Our legal resources are already stretched to the limit. We:
- Offer Know Your Rights trainings and on the spot advice on a variety of issues, including how to legally protest the War on Gaza
- Provide legal defense for community members who face discrimination at their workplaces, universities, and schools
- Bring Title VI complaints against universities and employers that disproportionately target Muslim, Arab, and Black student protesters, including a high-profile case against Swarthmore College
- Support immigrants and asylum seekers who struggle to navigate the U.S.’s complex immigration system
In Solidarity,
Adam Attia, Esq.
Legal Director, CAIR-Philadelphia
