The chairman of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) told Middle East Eye that the board will not resign amid growing calls for an overhaul, because doing so would be based on “a campaign of misleading statements circulating on social media”.
He added that it “would be a disservice to the organization’s mission at this critical time”.
The nearly 80-year-old Safa Rifka, an infertility and reproductive endocrinologist by trade, responded to questions from MEE through email on Saturday, via the public relations firm Poston Communications.
The statement comes amid turmoil at the ADC, following the official ousting of its national executive director, Abed Ayoub, on 27 April.
That came just one week after a prominent US lawmaker resurfaced accusations of misconduct towards women at the ADC.
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As of 24 April, a woman, Jenin Younes, has now become the face of the organisation.
Board versus Ayoub
Ayoub has said his firing was part of an orchestrated “smear campaign” and is now suing his former employer.
He called the termination of his contract “unjust” and “unlawful” because it came on the heels of his proposal for a “90-day institutional reset plan” of the ADC, which he submitted to the board on 1 April.
‘I cannot effectively lead with board members who force us to fight internally and externally. No Executive Director can’
– Abed Ayoub, ADC former national executive director
MEE has viewed the 39-page document entitled, “ADC/ADCRI Transformational Restructuring and Compliance Strengthening Plan”.
The ADCRI is the research arm of the organisation. MEE has also viewed the email showing it was provided to all members of the ADC board.
In that email, Ayoub points to “concerns from community members in the past” regarding “situations and treatment that arose because we did not have a clear distinction between governance and management”.
He suggested creating a distinction “between governance and operation”, so Arab-Americans can have clarity on who manages the ADC in a day-to-day capacity, and how the national board, largely based in Washington, DC, carries out its governance.
In his proposal document, Ayoub laid out a framework for a “disciplined institutional model in which purpose, people, systems, authority, and accountability are fully aligned”.
On 4 April, Ayoub filed an internal complaint about what he called “harassment” and a “hostile work environment” at the ADC.
“I cannot effectively lead with board members who force us to fight internally and externally. No Executive Director can,” he wrote in the complaint, which MEE has viewed.
“They brought on an ‘investigator’ to look into the matter,” Ayoub told MEE on Monday.
“They also formed a committee to look into it. The committee consisted of the same people who were accused. It’s like Israel investigating itself,” he added.
“ADC maintains a zero-tolerance policy on harassment, discrimination, intimidation and retaliation. We encourage anyone with concerns to contact us directly at concerns@adc.org, so they can be reviewed,” the organisation said in a 1 May press release on its website.
Ayoub also told MEE that he experienced a pattern of being belittled and shouted at during the course of his tenure, in addition to facing anti-Shia Muslim sentiment from some board members.
To that particular allegation, Rifka told MEE that under his leadership, he has always “encouraged board dialogue… across the full range of issues facing the Arab American diaspora”.
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After Ayoub went on a pre-planned vacation with his family on 11 April, he requested medical leave on 21 April for an undisclosed medical condition.
Rifka told MEE that he “had no other choice but to assume [Ayoub’s] voluntary resignation” after Ayoub became unreachable as to his exact return date.
That same day, 21 April, Ayoub received word that the director of stewardship, Nabil Mohamed, had replaced him.
While MEE was able to confirm the replacement occurred late last month, the ADC did not make the announcement public until 1 May.
On 23 April, Ayoub’s ADC email access was revoked. Four days later, he received the termination email. He is now being represented by the Nisar Law Group.
“Over the past year, the Board initiated meaningful governance best practices, including structural updates, bylaw review and proposed revisions, and clearer separation between Board and executive functions,” Rifka told MEE on Saturday.
“Part of this effort was to ensure operations and resources were properly aligned with the mission and current needs of ADC. We believe these efforts may have contributed to Mr Ayoub’s desire to leave.”
But beyond time to deal with a medical condition, Ayoub said he had no intention of leaving.
“Why would I put that full plan together just to leave?” he told MEE.
‘Organisational discipline’
The impetus for an overhaul of the way the ADC runs, Ayoub argued in the proposal he submitted, is the ADC’s exponential growth, in particular since the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, and Israel’s subsequent genocide in Gaza.
The events rattled US civil society, resulting in a string of anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab hate crimes, employment dismissals, nationwide campus protests, student suspensions, and ultimately the election result that favoured Donald Trump’s anti-war messaging in 2024.
The ADC undoubtedly stepped up for its community – a move even its most ardent critics have attested to in speaking with MEE.
‘A lot of the issues that I wanted to get fixed, he wouldn’t pay attention’
– Current part-time ADC staffer
The organisation’s lawyers have intervened in some of the most high-profile cases in the country to support Arab Americans, including fighting against the pending deportation of former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, and defending University of Michigan staff and students who have been terminated or suspended for pro-Palestine protests.
The ADC has also sued the openly anti-Muslim Republican lawmaker, Randy Fine.
“The organisation’s mission has outpaced its systems. That is often a mark of growth, but it becomes a liability when impact is not matched by organisational discipline,” Ayoub wrote in his proposal.
To that end, he suggested the ADC adopt as transparent a model as possible regarding how donations are collected and used, how employees are tasked and paid, how critical decisions are made, and how resources are shared across systems and departments.
Ayoub named himself in charge of all aspects of the project, and noted that the effort must involve a “cultural reset”.
It “requires a shift from heroic, personality-driven execution to disciplined institutional ownership”, he wrote in his proposal.
A current ADC part-time staffer who spoke to MEE on Saturday after being offered up by the public relations firm described the institution’s status under Ayoub’s tenure from 2022 onwards as “chaos”.
“He would disappear,” the part-time staffer said of Ayoub, adding that at times he would only be in the office for two hours a day, even though all staff had a return-to-office mandate in 2022, two years after the Covid-19 pandemic took hold.
“A lot of the issues that I wanted to get fixed, he wouldn’t pay attention.”
Ayoub told MEE he was always available to his staff during the day, acknowledging that he took second and third jobs in the evenings and on weekends to make ends meet for his family.
Long-standing allegations
Ed Hasan, who was invited to the ADC board by Rifka in December for his expertise in organisational governance, but was then ousted last month, described to MEE an unprofessional work environment belied by conflicts of interest and a lax attitude towards several forms of discrimination.
He did not, however, blame Ayoub for the deficiencies.
ADC leadership, comprised of a board made up of a chairperson and nine other members, said in its 1 May press release that it is “actively strengthening ADC’s structure and strategy to maximize our impact at a time when our community continues to face intensifying civil rights challenges”.
But the organisation has also been rocked by a decades-old scandal as all this has unfolded.
Just days before Ayoub’s firing, in late April, Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib resurfaced accusations of ADC misconduct towards women that date back to 2006 and 2013, in a video she posted to Instagram.
Since then, multiple former and current female staffers have spoken of their experiences publicly on social media, some in defence of Ayoub, while others suggested he played down the harassment.
Ayoub told MEE he rejects any accusations that he looked away.
Current employees, who are anonymous but say they are all Arab-American women, launched an Instagram account on 25 April to demand that the civil rights organisation “return” to the community it was built to protect.
Should there be monetary compensation as a result of his lawsuit, Ayoub wrote in a statement posted to Instagram late Friday, it would be put towards establishing a “Survivor’s Fund” for well over a dozen women who have come forward since 2006 to accuse the ADC of verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and sexual assault.
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The organisation’s latest publicly available tax filing says its revenue in 2024 was $675,000, though its legal work on First Amendment issues, immigration, and Palestine advocacy upon the return of the Trump administration in 2025 has seen it bring in some of its biggest donations in a decade, marking a dramatic boost in its operating budget.
Now, that budget is under threat.
On 1 May, MEE obtained an email from ADC’s top individual donor – sent that same day – as she threatened to reassess her contributions to the organisation following Ayoub’s removal.
Her funding has amounted to $500,000 to ADC over the years, MEE has been reliably told.
“I am frankly outraged by the abrupt removal of Abed Ayoub,” California-based Diane Shammas wrote to Rifka and ADC staff.
“At the same time, the ongoing concerns about governance, staff treatment, and internal culture are equally troubling,” she added. “I previously stepped away from the Board not only because of complaints about dismissiveness and unequal treatment toward women employees at ADC-DC, but also because I felt I was not heard when I expressed an opinion.”
Her support for ADC, she said, “is notably compromised”.
“I will regrettably have to reassess my continued involvement and financial support,” Shammas wrote.
MEE has reached out to Shammas but did not receive a response in time for publication.
