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Freedom of Information records obtained from the Connecticut State Department of Education show CAIR-Connecticut actively inserting itself into the process of creating optional Islamic and Arab studies curriculum resources mandated by Public Act 26-1.

CAIR-CT submitted names, resumes, and offered assistance in support of the initiative.

Among those listed on the Islamic and Arab Studies Curriculum Design Team is Maryam Hasan, a Florida-based CAIR National consultant whose day job is branding American universities “hostile campuses” when they discipline pro-Palestine protests.

Hasan serves as Strategic Campaign Specialist for Research and Advocacy at CAIR National.

She leads the organization’s Unhostile Campus Campaign. That project rates colleges and universities on how they handled post-October 7, 2023, encampments and demonstrations. Schools that called police, changed protest rules, or faced Title VI complaints over antisemitism and disruption receive low scores and the “Hostile Campus” label.

CAIR publicly announced designations against Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, CUNY and others, arguing administrators created a climate of fear for students opposing “genocide.” Hasan authored CAIR’s University Administrator’s Guide to an Unhostile Campus and wrote an op-ed arguing 9/11 lessons must not make Muslim children feel responsible for the attacks. Note that the 9/11 curriculum unveiled by CAIR in August generated instant outrage: it blamed 9/11 on US support for Israel and recommended Osama bin Laden’s writings. CAIR removed that curriculum the following day, citing improper vetting.

The same organization that spent years after October 7 treating campus crackdowns on Hamas-sympathetic activism as Islamophobia now has a seat at the table writing curriculum materials alongside the State Department of Education.

CAIR-CT Chairman Farhan Memon emailed Chief Academic Officer Irene Parisi in July and August 2026 with an initial slate of recommended committee members and attached resumes. The names include:

• Dr. Zareena Grewal, Yale associate professor of American Studies, Ethnicity, Race & Migration, and Religious Studies. Days after Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, Grewal tweeted that Israel is a “murderous, genocidal settler state,” that “Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle,” and “Settlers are not civilians. This is not hard.” A petition to remove her from the Yale faculty collected tens of thousands of signatures. Yale cited academic freedom. Conservatives and Jewish groups called the remarks a justification of terrorism. She also supported BDS.

• Dr. Habiba Noor, adjunct professor of education at Trinity University in San Antonio and a Norwalk High School graduate. Her work focuses on Muslim identity, Islamophobia, and a documentary play drawn from interviews about Donald Trump’s so-called "travel ban." She has described certain Texas policies targeting Muslim-affiliated groups as “old conspiratorial thinking.”

• Dr. Rana Hafiz, math chair in New Rochelle Public Schools with prior experience in Westport and Stamford public schools.

• Zeeshaan Arastu, a social studies teacher at New Canaan High School.

Hossein Kamaly of Hartford International University, a Shia studies professor, was also recommended by Memon, but did not appear on the spreadsheet of committee members included with the FOI results.

Republican lawmakers and the Connecticut Catholic Conference already objected to the new law over concerns that it singles out one faith tradition.

Now an organization that Florida and Texas have moved to treat as a terrorist organization under state law—citing historic Holy Land Foundation ties and Hamas-related statements by national leadership—is helping pick who writes lesson plans in Connecticut.

Connecticut parents should ask why an out-of-state CAIR operative whose recent work consists of accusing universities of hostility for enforcing order after October 7 is helping design what their children might be taught about Islam and the Arab world.

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