KAREEM SHORA

• Director of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee's legal department
• Was appointed (by President Barack Obama) to the Homeland Security Advisory Council in 2009

Born in Damascus, Syria, Kareem W. Shora earned a J.D. degree from the West Virginia University (WVU) College of Law. He subsequently served as a legal associate at the West Virginia Office of the Attorney General, the WVU Immigration Law Clinical Program, and the Columbia Energy Corporate Law Department.

From 1999-2009, Shora worked with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), where he held such titles as legal advisor, legal director, and national executive director. In these roles, he consistently joined the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Islamic supremacist groups in lobbying against the Bush administration's anti-terror initiatives. Further, Shora co-authored ADC's 1998-2000 Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination Against Arab Americans, as well as a 2002 publication titled Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination Against Arab Americans: The Post-September 11 Backlash.

Shora also assisted in producing Wrong Then, Wrong Now: Racial Profiling Before and After September 11, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights' (LCCR) report on racial profiling. In 2004 he helped put together an updated edition of LCCR's Cause for Concern: Hate Crimes in America.

In 2008 the Ford Foundation selected Shora to be a member of its Foreign Policy Task Force. That same year, Shora was an occasional blogger on the Obama For America (later known as Organizing for America) website.

In June 2009, President Obama's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano appointed Shora to serve on the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Four months later, Shora became the senior policy advisor for DHS's Community Engagement Section. He was also named to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's “Heritage Community Liaison Council.”

The United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Central District of California) has certified Shora as an expert witness on “xenophobia and anti-Arab discrimination,” a credential that has earned him numerous invitations to speak as a subject-matter expert on such themes as tolerance, diversity, integration, civil rights, civil liberties, and immigration policies. Shora has been a frequent on-air guest at many national and international media outlets—including Al Jazeera television, National Public Radio, and Pacifica Radio. Moreover, he has testified before the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and other major international human-rights bodies.

Shora's radical ties are significant. He has spoken at the National Lawyers Guild's Annual Conference; is listed as a “friend and ally” of the Center for Constitutional Rights; and received the American Immigration Lawyers Association's Arthur C. Helton Human Rights Award in 2003.

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