Legislation seeks to remove Maryland hate crimes commission member following Israel-Hamas war remarks

Jewish members of the Maryland House of Delegates are seeking to pass legislation to remove the representative of a Muslim advocacy organization from the attorney general’s hate crimes commission following her suspension for online comments about the Israel-Hamas war.

“A group that espouses vitriol and hatred for the Jewish community does not belong on a commission that has been established to respond to and prevent hate,” Deborah Miller, a representative of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said during a tense hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Zainab Chaudry, the executive director of the Maryland chapter of the Council on American‐Islamic Relations (CAIR), was suspended from the hate crimes commission in November following a series of social media posts published on a personal account that criticized Israel and rallied support for Palestine. She told The Baltimore Sun last year that she was exercising her right to free speech, and that the posts only reflected her personal views — not those of CAIR.

Chaudry was later reinstated on the commission by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, who determined he did not have the authority to remove or suspend members.

Sponsored by Baltimore Dels. Dalya Attar and Sandy Rosenberg and Montgomery County Del. Joe Vogel, House Bill 763 would remove Chaudry from the state’s Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention. The legislation would allow Brown, a Democrat who chairs the commission, to designate two members of the Muslim community to serve in her place.

The commission is largely made up of members of faith-based, civil rights and state-run organizations designated in the law, including the Baltimore Jewish Council, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Maryland Chiefs of Police Association.

Attar said that she did not select two Muslim organizations because their members feared retaliation from CAIR.

“Bullies have no place on a commission tasked to fight hate crimes,” Attar said of CAIR. “Bullies have no place in Maryland.”

The Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention was established under a bill passed during the 2023 legislative session to strategize how to respond to and prevent hate crimes and study related laws. There are 22 members.

CAIR testified in favor of the bill that established the commission.

Attar said Tuesday that Brown did not believe he had the ability to modify the commission’s membership without legislation explicitly stating he could.

Chaudry testified virtually in the bill’s opposition Tuesday, noting that she had received death threats as recently as the day before.

She said that her social media posts were “mischaracterized” and are a distraction from completing the work the commission was tasked to do.

“More so than the posts, I think what we need to focus on here is the fact that communities are in pain, and each of us bring perspectives to the table that are shaped and formed by the communities that we advocate for and represent,” Chaudry said.

University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law Professor Mark Graber testified Tuesday that the removal of CAIR under the bill “is consistent with past (U.S.) Supreme Court decisions” and would not infringe upon First Amendment protections. He and Miller were joined by representatives of the Anti-Defamation League and the Baltimore Jewish Council on a panel testifying in favor of the bill.

Shelley Cohen Fudge of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace testified in opposition to the bill, saying that the views of the Anti-Defamation League, the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Jewish Community Relations Council are not representative of all Jews.

Rev. Kobi Little, the president of the NAACP Maryland State Conference, told the House committee that he has worked with CAIR and Chaudry. He said, though he has disagreed with some of her views, he respects her and her opinion. He called the bill “an unnecessary power play.”

“The commission has been formed because of the expertise of its members, and to politicize that process or to extract power and authority from the commission to meet the goals and objectives of one set of members … rather than allowing all of the commission members to debate and to arrive at a conclusion together is a problem,” said Little.

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