A Muslim Commission Is Being Advanced in Massachusetts, and Democrats Are on Board

Just when we thought we weren’t doing diversity, equity, and inclusion anymore, along comes Massachusetts Senate Bill 2134, which claims to promote “civil rights and inclusion” for American Muslims. We’re all for civil rights, but what this bill actually does is propose the creation of a permanent, taxpayer-funded “commission on the status of people who practice Islam.” It would allow one religious group unprecedented ability to influence Massachusetts policy and legislation.Sponsored by two Democrats with sizable Muslim constituencies, Senator James Eldridge and Representative Vanna Howard, along with additional co-sponsors, S.2134 is pending in the legislature and has already cleared several committees. Why does Massachusetts need such a commission? Because the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says so.The Muslim advocacy group funded and published a survey in 2025 titled “Silenced Voices: Examining Bullying & Islamophobia in Massachusetts Public Schools,” which found that 48 percent of the 325 Muslim students who are between grades six and 12 and who participated said they had experienced some form of bullying due to their faith.The survey was hardly scientific, though. The group’s recruitment process, which identified students “in person and online at mosques during after-school or weekend programs, Friday prayers, and community events,” suggests what pollsters call selection bias, meaning a non-randomized sample. The survey also lacked any comparison or control group, and applied no demographic controls. Nevertheless, the survey’s findings prompted Mr. Eldridge and Ms. Howard to draft the bill, according to a CAIR-MA press release in June 2025. CAIR’s Massachusetts chapter has gone further and claimed that its survey results reflect a broader problem of discrimination and harassment in the wider Muslim community. “Anti-Muslim discrimination is so normalized that by the time we get to middle and high school, we’re desensitized to it,” said the director of youth advocacy & community outreach at CAIR-MA, Fatima Mohamed, in a June 2024 press release.No evidence is provided to support that assertion outside of CAIR’s own internal surveys and reports. The Massachusetts Hate Crime Report for 2024 recorded just 11 anti-Islamic incidents, up from five the year before — in a state of some 7 million persons, hardly proof of widespread “Islamophobia.”So, to remedy CAIR-MA’s unverified claim of excessive bullying of Muslim students in Massachusetts schools which was then used to amplify the equally unsubstantiated claim of widespread anti-Muslim discrimination across the state, S.2134 and the idea for the commission were born.Curiously, S.2134 never mentions the words students, schools, or bullying. The bill doesn’t even pretend to address the problem it was written to solve. If enacted, the commission would empower its 11 members to “identify and recommend qualified American Muslims for appointive positions at all levels of government.” This provision could run afoul of Article VI of the United States Constitution, which asserts that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The commission also raises questions relating to the Constitution’s First Amendment establishment clause. The commission would be given the power, too, to “assess programs and practices in all state agencies as they affect American Muslims,” the bill’s text states.The commission’s members would also advise on proposed state legislation, hold hearings, serve as liaisons between government and private interest groups, accept donations, and employ a paid executive director. Bullying could well have been the pretext, but the commission has greater ambitions than ensuring children aren’t teased on the playground.Even if CAIR’s survey results were trustworthy and an epidemic of bullying targeting Muslim students in Massachusetts existed, civil rights statutes and anti-bullying laws already apply to every student regardless of his or her faith. If those laws are not being enforced, the remedy would be better enforcement, not a Muslim commission inside state government to exclusively “protect” or empower one religion.There is no such commission in Massachusetts for Christians, Hindus, Jews, or Sikhs though surely some of those students are having a hard time at school as well. This commission is clearly about politics, not protecting Muslim pupils.There is also the matter of CAIR’s credibility. In 2008 federal prosecutors named CAIR’s national organization as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing case and connected the advocacy organization to a Muslim Brotherhood network that supported Hamas. CAIR was never criminally charged. Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron De Santis of Florida have designated the group a Foreign Terrorist Organization, though Mr. De Santis’s designation is on hold due to a federal court order. That Massachusetts politicians would move to create a permanent religious affinity group within its state government on the word of an organization such as CAIR is indefensible. This bill proposes a non-solution to a non-problem and risks dredging up identity politics like it’s 2021 all over again. There shouldn’t be a special commission for any religious group in any state government. If elected officials are going to argue for one, they should at least bother to make a case and deploy a credible messenger. Senate Bill 2134 misses on both marks and should never make it to the governor’s desk.

A Muslim Commission Is Being Advanced in Massachusetts, and Democrats Are on Board

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