The local Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR-MN, has named Jaylani Hussein as the new executive director of the Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization.
Hussein, whose family moved to Minnesota from Somalia in 1993, has been CAIR-MN’s outreach director. Before that, he worked as community liaison officer at Metro State University and was a planner for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.
He succeeds CAIR-MN co-founder and former executive director Lori Saroya, who said in the announcement: “CAIR-MN has completed its founding phase. We are certain that Jaylani’s excellent leadership skills, sincerity and passion for civil rights will help move CAIR-MN into its next stage.”
CAIR-MN was founded in 2007. The group says last year it “handled over 200 cases, including employment discrimination, school bullying and harassment, land use opposition, bias-motivated crimes, racial and religious profiling, and extra-judicial exile.”
