ADC's Reckoning: Top Leaders Fired Amid Harassment Allegations and Extremist Rhetoric
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is unraveling under a 117-page derivative complaint, sexual harassment cover-up allegations, and extremist rhetoric from its own executive director
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The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the country’s oldest Arab-American civil rights group, fired Executive Director Abed Ayoub, board member Dr. Ed Hasan, and National Organizing Director Suehaila Amen in late April 2026 — days after Hasan filed a 117-page derivative complaint with the D.C. Attorney General’s office and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) accused the organization of burying sexual harassment claims, including her own.
The implosion comes weeks after ADC’s flagship ArabCon 2025 conference, where Ayoub himself told attendees that the legal, medical, and engineering professions are “Zionist-controlled” — exposing an organization whose internal extremism appears to mirror the dysfunction now consuming its leadership.
The Firings
On April 24, ADC announced that National Legal Director Jenin Younes would replace Ayoub as interim president, following an “extraordinary meeting.” Within days, Ayoub, Hasan, and Amen were all out, and Director of Stewardship Nabil Mohamad was installed as executive director.
Ayoub publicly rejected the dismissal as “unlawful,” announcing legal action through the Nisar Law Group and accusing the board of religious discrimination against him as a Shia Muslim.
The 117-Page Complaint
Hasan, host of the Sumud Podcast, filed a formal derivative demand on April 22 through Chap Petersen and Associates, copying the D.C. Attorney General’s Nonprofit Enforcement Unit. The complaint alleges that Board Chair Dr. Safa Rifka instructed staff to destroy the organization’s bylaws to obstruct accountability, that the board investigated misconduct claims against itself in violation of basic governance standards, and that Hasan’s removal was “procedurally void, substantively baseless, and retaliatory.”
Hasan, invited to the board in December for his governance and HR expertise, was fired within five months of raising concerns. “I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years. This is one of the worst cases I’ve seen,” he told Middle East Eye. The board, he noted, is overwhelmingly male and over 60, with most members having “overstayed” term limits set in the bylaws.
Tlaib Claims Sexual Harassment
Tlaib posted an Instagram video in late April detailing harassment she experienced as an intern at ADC’s Michigan office, accusing the organization of using her image on its website without consent. She charged that the alleged harasser “didn’t get fired” but was “paid to just go away,” and that leadership “threw it under the rug.”
The accusations echo a 2013 scandal in which then-State Rep. Tlaib helped lead public outcry against ADC-Michigan Regional Director Imad Hamad, who was accused by at least 15 women of groping, attempted kissing, and sexual coercion. ADC officials had received complaints and affidavits from 8 to 10 women as early as 2007 — and promoted Hamad to Senior National Advisor instead of disciplining him. He ultimately retired in November 2013 rather than being fired. Current ADC staff, all Arab women, launched a protest Instagram account on April 25 demanding the entire 10-member board step down.
“Zionist-Controlled” Professions
The governance crisis accompanies what ADC’s own leadership has been saying publicly. At ArabCon 2025, ADC’s annual flagship conference, held September 25-28 in Dearborn, Ayoub claimed from the stage that law, medicine, and engineering are “Zionist-controlled,” fields actually governed by state licensing boards.
Ayoub’s claim was not an outlier within ADC. At ArabCon 2024, ADC data strategist Mohammed Maraqa stated from the same stage that “the difference between our community and the Jewish community is that the Jewish community is led by their business people, by their moneyed interests” — a textbook antisemitic trope delivered by a senior staff member of an organization that brands itself as a civil rights group.
Donors Walk
In comments under ADC’s social media accounts, supporters are demanding refunds. Lebanese-American physician Ali Dabaja wrote: “I can no longer in good faith support this organization. I am shocked at this level of infighting, corruption and lack of accountability.” Donor Rania Masri added: “None of these actions bodes well. How shameful.”
ADC’s official response, released through a public relations firm, referred reporters to a social-media statement claiming “some of what is being circulated involves incidents from more than a decade ago” and reiterating a “zero-tolerance policy for harassment.”
Part of a Pattern
The ADC scandal lands amid a string of sexual misconduct revelations rocking the broader pro-Palestine movement and the actors at its ideological center. In April, Palestinian activist group Heart of Falastin accused a Steering Committee member of the Global Sumud Flotilla — identified only as “B.L.” — of engaging in sexual relations with three different volunteers aboard boats headed to Gaza on a previous voyage, calling it a “clear violation of ethics and power.” Activists accused flotilla leadership of failing to investigate, threatening those who spoke out, and silencing complaints.
Days later, residents of Gaza told Jusoor News that Hamas members are systematically exploiting widows of slain fighters and desperate young mothers — bribing them with rice, sugar, and aid packages in exchange for sex. One Hamas-affiliated source described finding the wife of a slain colleague being taken advantage of by Qassam Brigades members in a tent in the Gharabli area, and said leadership ordered him to “keep silent about it.”
A separate woman told the outlet that the abuse is so widespread it functions “as though it’s an organization set up for sexual harassment, psychological abuse and harassing young women.” The pattern — institutional dysfunction, the protection of senior figures, and the silencing of women — runs from a Washington civil rights nonprofit, to a humanitarian flotilla, to the terror group both have seemingly defended.
The Bigger Picture
ADC has positioned itself as a leading voice in pro-Palestinian campus advocacy since October 7, 2023, providing legal support to student demonstrators and partnering with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to target universities including GWU, UCLA, and Emory as “institutions of particular concern.” That public posture is now colliding with documented evidence of internal misogyny stretching back nearly two decades, dueling lawsuits between fired leaders and the board, and antisemitic conspiracy theories voiced from ADC’s own podium.
Not even a blind man would sexually assault Tlaib.