"My driving ambition is for scholarship that remains rooted in and true to the lived experience and transformative vision of the clients, communities, and movements that have worked with me. Unmoored from the accountability that accompanies a principled praxis, legal scholarship all too often serves and perpetuates prevailing power structures."
Ramzi Kassem is a Professor of Law at the City University of New York, where he founded and co-directs CLEAR. His writing, teaching, and clinical legal practice grapple with the expressions and excesses of the sprawling U.S. security state. From 2022 to 2024, Professor Kassem served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the White House. He has argued constitutional, criminal, and national security cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, in the federal courts of appeals (including en banc) and district courts, at the Military Commission at Guantànamo Bay, and in immigration courts. Professor Kassem is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Freedom Scholar.
In addition to academic writing, Kassem’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian and elsewhere
The case involved three American Muslim men who were placed or kept on the No-Fly List by FBI agents for the men’s refusal to work as informants and spy on their own faith communities in violation of their religious beliefs. In conversation with one of their attorneys, these are the plaintiffs’ reflections on their journey.
This article takes as its main focus a single aspect of the authors’ clinical practice: supporting individuals and their mostly-Muslim communities in New York City during FBI attempts to question them under the guise of counterterrorism, and for purposes of intelligence gathering.
What to learn more about the Freedom Scholars?
Questions about the Freedom Scholar awards can be sent to freedomscholars@caseygrants.org.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR THE FREEDOM SCHOLAR AWARDS HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY THE INATAI FOUNDATION.
