SAAJCO supports the lawsuit filed by the ACLU, ACLU of Florida, and the Southern Poverty Law Center challenging Governor Ron DeSantis’ unconstitutional attempt to designate CAIR, CAIR-Florida, and other advocacy organizations as “domestic terrorist organizations.” 

CAIR is the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization, serving communities for decades through community education and events, legal services, and advocacy. Governor DeSantis’s targeting of CAIR seeks to stigmatize, intimidate, and silence the organization, while threatening the speech, association, and work of civil rights organizations more broadly.

“We condemn this latest effort to criminalize and target organizations serving marginalized communities in violation of the First and Fourteenth,” said Kalpana Peddibhotla, Executive Director of SAAJCO. “When governments seek to punish dissent and delegitimize civil rights organizations, they violate our constitutional rights and undermine the democratic values they claim to protect.”

SAAJCO will continue to oppose efforts to use government power to silence civil rights organizations and criminalize constitutionally protected advocacy.