Dismantling IAMC’s Fabricated Smear Campaign Against VHPA (Part 6 of 8) – Using Academia Cover for Advocacy

For the next allegation Rasheed Ahmed levels against VHPA, we begin with this excerpt from his article:
“Rutgers University’s Center for Security, Race, and Rights concluded in 2025 that U.S.-based Hindutva groups constitute ‘a threat to equality and religious pluralism’ in this country and recommended that organizations functioning as proxies of the RSS and its affiliates be required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”

The allegation rests entirely on a 2025 report from Rutgers University’s Center for Security, Race, and Rights (CSRR)—an entity currently under active congressional investigation for platforming extremists, stoking antisemitism, and misusing taxpayer funds.

Led by Egypt-born Professor Sahar Aziz, CSRR has been formally probed by the Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans[1], led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (February 2024), and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce[2], chaired by Rep. Virginia Foxx (March 2024). Both committees have accused the center of becoming “a hotbed of radical antisemitic, anti-American, anti-Israel, and pro-terrorist activity.” The committees also described CSRR’s Director Sahar Aziz and numerous CSRR fellows and faculty affiliates as having records of virulent antisemitism and support for terrorism.

In 2021, CSRR marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11 by featuring convicted terrorist Sami Al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to providing material support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.[3] The event framed the attacks as an opportunity to challenge the “exceptionalization of 9/11” and legitimize “resistance” to the war on terror.

Aziz herself signed a 2021 letter praising the “Palestinian struggle to resist violent occupation” and, after October 7, tweeted claims denying Hamas rapes and beheading babies while accusing Israel of fabricating stories.

This is not legitimate scholarship. It is a state-supported academic center using public resources to host convicted terrorists, celebrate mass murder, and frame jihadist violence as legitimate “resistance”—then presuming to lecture patriotic American organizations like VHPA on democracy and pluralism.

VHPA does not need to defend its right to exist as an American organization. Labeling patriotic U.S. citizens exercising their First Amendment rights as foreign agents by a tainted, radical institution soaked in antisemitism and extremism is not journalism or scholarship—it is rank hypocrisy and ideological venom. Such a discredited source has no moral authority to lecture anyone on pluralism, equality, or democracy.

The congressional record is clear: CSRR under Aziz has forfeited any claim to credibility. Its 2025 report is partisan activism dressed in academic robes, funded by the taxpayers it ultimately undermines.

Read Part 5: Selective Outrage Over Speakers

Read Part 7: Manufacturing a National Security Threat

Citations

[1] U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, “Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans Probe Rutgers University Center that Promotes Terrorist Sympathizers and Anti-Semitism,” February 7, 2024, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/senate-judiciary-committee-republicans-probe-rutgers-university-center-that-promotes-terrorist-sympathizers-and-anti-semitism.

[2] U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Letter to Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway, March 27, 2024, https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/rutgers_letter_final.pdf.

[3] U.S. Department of Justice, Apr 17, 2006; Sami Al-Arian Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Services To Palestinian Islamic Jihad;  https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2006/April/06_crm_221.html