California School District Accepted $175,000 From Organization Designated as Terrorist Group in Multiple States
San Juan Unified School District partnered with CAIR despite FBI severing ties over Hamas connections and designations from Texas, Florida
The San Juan Unified School District in California accepted over $175,000 from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in fiscal year 2024 — an organization that two U.S. state governors have officially designated as a foreign terrorist organization, and that the FBI suspended all formal contacts with in 2009 over evidence linking its founders to Hamas. Documents obtained by the watchdog group Defending Education reveal extensive financial ties between the 40,000-student district and CAIR, including youth programming inside schools and CAIR’s participation in strategic planning committees — raising urgent questions about institutional oversight, student safety, and the protection of American values in public education.
Deep Partnership Extended Beyond Funding
Emails obtained by Defending Education reveal that CAIR’s involvement with San Juan Unified extended far beyond monetary donations. In March 2024, a CAIR youth coordinator thanked district officials for inviting the organization to “Starr King’s parent night and the SJUSD Strategic Core planning,” noting that CAIR had “successfully launched” a six-week Leadership Development program at Starr King, an elementary and middle school in the district.
A June 2024 email confirmed that “youth from the district” were attending CAIR workshops. The partnership dates back to at least 2022, when a memorandum of understanding showed CAIR provided $180,000 to the district — bringing total documented funding to over $355,000 across two fiscal years. CAIR representatives maintained ongoing communication with district staff about grant reporting requirements and discussed expanding programs to additional schools.
Student Privacy Concerns Raised
In May 2024, a CAIR representative told district staff in an email: “Along with your monthly invoice reports you are required to submit the participants served report.” A district employee then asked a colleague, “We are using CAIR to pay for the attached IntelliBricks invoices. How do I get a list of the participants served?”
According to the Washington Examiner, documents indicate that “CAIR requested student names, and district personnel provided them.” The district’s provision of student names to CAIR as part of grant reporting appears to raise concerns under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which prohibits schools from disclosing personally identifiable information from education records to third parties without parental consent.
When Defending Education submitted a public records request seeking documentation about the CAIR funding, the district provided documents containing a list of refugee students with their full names and “home language” — including Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Russian, and Ukrainian — completely unredacted.
CAIR Executive Celebrated Hamas Attack
Following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel that killed over 1,200 people including 46 Americans, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad stated at a conference: “I was happy to see people breaking the siege...the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense.” The White House subsequently distanced itself from CAIR following the remarks.
In October 2025, CAIR-Ohio Director Khaled Tuurani participated in an online conference alongside Majed al-Zeer, a Hamas official whom the U.S. Treasury designated as a Specially Designated Terrorist in 2024 for his role in Hamas fundraising efforts. The George Washington University Program on Extremism documented that both appeared on panels for an event whose purpose was to plan strategy “in the Light of Al-Aqsa Flood” — Hamas’s name for the October 7 massacre.
FBI Suspended Contact Over Hamas Evidence
In 2009, the FBI explained to U.S. Senator Jon Kyl that it had “suspended all formal contacts between CAIR and the FBI” due to evidence from the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial linking CAIR and its founders to Hamas. FBI Assistant Director Richard C. Powers wrote that “evidence was introduced that demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders...and the Palestine Committee,” which federal prosecutors showed was created by the Muslim Brotherhood to support Hamas politically and financially in the United States.
The FBI stated it could not resume relations “until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas.” That determination has never been made. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad — the latter still serving as executive director participated in a secretly recorded 1993 Philadelphia meeting where Hamas members and supporters discussed ways to “derail” U.S.-led peace efforts following the Oslo Accords, according to FBI wiretaps introduced at trial. CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, the largest terrorism financing prosecution in U.S. history.
Two State Governors Issue Terrorist Designations
Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated both the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations in November 2025, citing the groups’ goals to “forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world.’” The designation authorizes heightened enforcement and prohibits both organizations from purchasing land in Texas.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a similar executive order the following month, noting that CAIR “was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator by the United States Government in the largest terrorism-financing case in American history.” The order directed Florida law enforcement to “undertake all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities in Florida by the terrorist organizations designated.”
In Congress, Representative Randy Fine introduced H.R. 4097, the “Designate CAIR as a Terrorist Organization Act,” which directs the Secretary of State to conduct a formal review of whether CAIR meets federal criteria for designation as a foreign terrorist organization. The United Arab Emirates, a U.S. ally in the Middle East, designated CAIR as a terrorist organization in 2014.
Risks to American Educational Institutions
The San Juan partnership represents a troubling pattern of CAIR embedding itself within American civic institutions despite evidence linking the organization to designated terrorist networks. The district’s leadership allowed an organization that the FBI suspended contact with and that two U.S. governors designated as a terrorist group to operate youth programs inside schools, participate in strategic planning, and potentially access student information without adequate transparency or parental notification.
By granting CAIR involvement with refugee students, many from countries affected by Islamic extremism, and including the organization in district-level planning committees, San Juan Unified prioritized funding over institutional safeguards. The lack of public disclosure about the partnership, combined with concerns about student privacy protections, raises fundamental questions about accountability in American public education and the due diligence required when accepting funds from controversial organizations.