Short-lived partnership between Census and Muslim group over

By MIKE SCHNEIDER
September 3, 2019

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A partnership between the U.S. Census Bureau and an Islamic civil rights group has ended just days after it was announced, following a backlash from conservative media.

The Department of Commerce — the agency that oversees the Census Bureau — confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday that the Council on American-Islamic Relations would no longer be a formal partner in efforts to promote Muslim American participation in the 2020 Census. Commerce Department spokesman Kevin Manning didn’t publicly offer further details.

The Muslim civil rights group, commonly referred to as CAIR, announced the partnership last Wednesday.

A nonprofit group led by journalist Steven Emerson, who has a history of making anti-CAIR statements, wrote about the partnership after it was announced. The topic was then taken up by Fox News host Tucker Carlson on his show late last week. Carlson has been the target of a boycott effort by CAIR for what the group says has been a habit of anti-Muslim statements.

Carlson said on the show that CAIR had been an unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas terrorism case more than a decade ago. CAIR and other Muslim groups have long held they were smeared by the government in the case, and a federal appeals court agreed that parts of the government’s case went too far. The Washington Post, in a 2011 story evaluating the accuracy of anti-CAIR claims by Republican congressmen, concluded, “The repeated references to CAIR being an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ is one of those true facts that ultimately gives a false impression.”

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