By: Fern Sidman

A sweeping new investigation has revealed that student activists disciplined for disruptive anti-Israel demonstrations on American campuses—including protests that resulted in arrests, building takeovers, and violent confrontations—received $1,000 payments from a Muslim nonprofit operating in California, according to a report that appeared on Tuesday in The New York Post. The findings, disclosed through a joint report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN), outline a coordinated effort by the California branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to provide financial support to students who faced university or legal consequences for their anti-Israel activities before and after the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023.

As The New York Post report detailed, CAIR-California established what it called the “Champions of Justice Fund,” a financial pool marketed as “institutional endorsement” for pro-Palestinian student activists. The report indicates that CAIR’s San Francisco and Los Angeles affiliates raised more than $100,000 for the program, while CAIR’s national headquarters solicited an additional $64,000. These funds were then distributed as $1,000 grants—framed as interest-free loans—to students who, according to CAIR’s website, had “lost scholarships, housing or other support because of their advocacy.”

By October 2024, CAIR-CA publicly acknowledged awarding $20,000 in loans and scholarships to twenty students through the fund, The New York Post reported. The organization did not release the identities of the recipients, but its promotional materials listed several high-profile institutions associated with anti-Israel campus unrest, including Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University.

The implication, according to the report in The New York Post, is that students suspended or expelled after storming Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall on April 30, 2024—an incident in which protesters barricaded themselves inside using furniture, chains, and padlocks before police forcibly entered—could have been eligible for the $1,000 payouts. The NCRI report sharply criticized the fund for creating a “reward structure” for activism that escalated into “criminality and violence.” NCRI’s founder, Joel Finkelstein, told The New York Post that offering cash to disciplined agitators risked incentivizing increasingly aggressive behavior on college campuses. “This is how ideologies metastasize,” he warned.

Among the testimonials highlighted in CAIR’s literature was an anonymous account from a student who claimed severe personal and financial consequences tied to his anti-Israel activism. “The consequences of my pro-Palestine advocacy have been swift and severe,” the statement read. The student claimed to have been “doxxed,” threatened, and stripped of a summer law firm offer and its accompanying diversity scholarship, losses he estimated at $115,000.

Although the testimonial did not include a name, the details closely match those reported about Ibrahim Bharmal, a Harvard Business School student who was arrested on October 18, 2023, after participating in a “die-in” demonstration the night following the explosion at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital. As The New York Post reported, Bharmal had been serving as a volunteer “safety marshal” during the protest.

Bharmal, 29, was later sentenced to 80 hours of community service and ordered to complete an anger-management program related to an incident in which he and other protesters surrounded a Jewish student, Yoav Segev, waving kaffiyehs and chanting “shame!” at close range while obstructing Segev’s ability to leave the area. Bharmal spoke to The Boston Globe about losing his summer law-firm offer as a result of the episode.

Despite his arrest and the assault conviction that followed, Bharmal did not face any disciplinary action from Harvard, according to the report in The New York Post. Instead, the following year he was awarded a $65,000 fellowship by the Harvard Law Review for graduates entering the public sector. Bharmal completed his degree in 2025 and now works at CAIR-Los Angeles as an immigration rights fellow. He did not respond to The New York Post when asked whether he had received money from CAIR’s Champions of Justice Fund.

The New York Post also reported that CAIR leaders played direct, public roles in anti-Israel campus protests, further underscoring the organization’s proximity to student activism. During the second day of a pro-Hamas encampment at the University of California, Riverside in the spring of 2024, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR’s Greater Los Angeles Area office, conducted a “teach-in” for protesters and delivered remarks in support of the encampment.

CAIR, which calls itself the largest Muslim charity in the United States, has for years been intertwined with progressive philanthropic networks. The New York Post reported that it has received substantial funding from organizations such as the Tides Foundation and the Weingart Foundation, with CAIR publicly claiming that less than 1 percent of its donations originate outside the United States.

Yet financial transparency questions have repeatedly surfaced. When former CAIR employee Lori Saroya filed a defamation lawsuit that sought disclosure of CAIR’s foreign donors, and a judge ruled that CAIR must provide the information, the group abruptly settled the case out of court, The New York Post noted. CAIR had previously been awarded $500,000 from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, according to a 2002 report cited in Arab News.

Beyond the funding for student activists, CAIR-CA itself faces broader scrutiny. According to findings highlighted by IAN and reported by The New York Post, CAIR-California is currently under federal investigation by the Department of Justice and is also being examined by the California Fair Political Practices Commission over allegations of financial misrepresentation involving federal funds.

One case drew particular attention. CAIR-CA received $7.2 million in taxpayer money between 2022 and 2024 to assist impoverished Afghan refugees resettling in California. According to The New York Post’s review of NCRI and IAN’s analysis, the funds were intended to support approximately 1,800 refugees. However, only 177 refugees—less than 10 percent of those the funding was earmarked to help—received aid between 2021 and 2023. The Post reported that significant portions of the taxpayer-funded sum were unaccounted for in the organization’s public filings.

NCRI and IAN have called for a full forensic audit of CAIR-California, which received more than $17 million in donations and government contributions in 2023 alone, according to publicly available records cited by The New York Post.

In response to questions from The Post, CAIR-California’s legal director, Amr Shabaik, rejected any suggestion of financial impropriety. He characterized the allegations as “false claims” originating from “fringe anti-Muslim groups.” He further stated, “All contributions CAIR-California receives are reported, accounted for, and used strictly for their intended purpose and subjected to rigorous internal auditing and reporting. That is why both private and public funders have worked and continue to work with CAIR-California.”

The report published by NCRI and IAN, and examined by The New York Post, also reviews CAIR’s organizational origins. CAIR emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s in coordination with Middle Eastern Islamist groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. During the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial, federal court records identified CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator.

According to the legal documents cited in the NCRI report and reiterated in The New York Post report, the court found “ample evidence” linking CAIR to the so-called Palestine Committee, a U.S.-based arm of the Muslim Brotherhood designed to advance Hamas’s interests inside the United States.

CAIR has repeatedly rejected the allegations and said the Holy Land Foundation case was “deeply flawed and widely criticized.” The organization further noted that a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010 declared the release of the co-conspirators list unconstitutional.

The presence of institutions such as Columbia, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania on CAIR’s donor-fund literature echoes the pattern of campus unrest that unfolded across major American universities from 2023 to 2025—events extensively covered by The New York Post.

At Columbia, the occupation of Hamilton Hall became a watershed moment in the national debate over campus disorder. Protesters barricaded doors, blocked law-enforcement access, and caused widespread property damage before police stormed the building. At the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, long-running encampments and confrontations led to dozens of disciplinary actions, police responses, and intense national scrutiny.

The NCRI and IAN report suggests that CAIR’s involvement in financially supporting individuals at these institutions underscores a systemic effort to sustain pro-Hamas activism irrespective of consequences faced by students. This interpretation, as reported by The New York Post, raises questions about outside incentives fueling unrest on college campuses in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent rise of anti-Israel demonstrations in the United States.

Despite CAIR’s assurances of strict compliance and its denial of any wrongdoing, the financial discrepancies, the student-funding pipeline, and the organization’s historical background continue to draw significant attention. Federal and state investigations, The New York Post report noted, remain ongoing.

Meanwhile, NCRI and IAN maintain that CAIR’s Champions of Justice Fund represents an institutionalized mechanism for sustaining the most terrorist elements of anti-Israel campus activism—an allegation that continues to be disputed by CAIR but has become central to the emerging national conversation around funding streams behind campus protest movements.

As The New York Post report noted, the broader implications for university governance, nonprofit accountability, and the intersection of foreign-policy activism with domestic political organizing remain critical issues shaping public debate.