AUSTIN, Texas (RNS) — It was just past 9 p.m. on June 22, during the Texas State Board of Education meeting, when Shaimaa Zayan, operations manager for the Council on American-Islamic Relations’s Austin chapter, was called up to testify. She braced herself, knowing what was coming.
“Can we have a leader of a foreign terrorist organization testify for the state board of education?” Brandon Hall, a Republican board member, asked the chairman, just as Zayan rose to the podium.
Hall was referring to an order by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott designating CAIR a terrorist group last November. The group, one of the country’s largest Muslim advocacy organizations, however, is not listed on the U.S. Department of State’s list of terrorist organizations, which is officially responsible for such designations…