Cleared, but booted -- that's the outcome of an Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee investigation into the conduct of its Metro Detroit chapter head.
Niraj Warikoo updates a situation she was first to report June 1 in the Free Press:
Imad Hamad will no longer lead the ADC’s Michigan office as its regional director and serve as a senior national adviser, but he will remain with ADC as an adviser to the Michigan office in Dearborn.
Imad Hamad poses with summer interns in photo he posted on his personal Facebook page three days before being placed on leave.
The group announced Friday that an outside attorney wasn't convinced Hamad, 52, sexually harassed female employees and interns over several years, Warikoo reports. He has been on leave since June.
The national office of ADC, the biggest Arab-American civil rights group in the U.S., said the investigation . . . has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to make a conclusive determination supporting allegations of harassment since 2007.” . . .
State Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, and ADC’s former deputy director Rana Abbas — who both said they were repeatedly sexually harassed by Hamad — blasted ADC’s leadership for the decision. . . .
“Shame on them,” Tlaib told the Free Press. “The leading Arab-American civil rights group just gave a green light to sexual predators all across the community that this is OK. . . . The right thing was not done today. Not at all.”
Abbas sees a contradiction between the finding of insufficient evidence and Hamad's removal as regional director and senior national adviser, she tells the reporter.
