Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) at a news conference in July. File photo by Elijah Pittman.
Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) on Monday nominated Adileh Sharieff to the Maryland Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention, the latest chapter in the controversy over the makeup of the panel in the wake of the war in Gaza.
Sharieff, a Montgomery County resident, is a former trustee at the Islamic Center of Maryland who co-chaired the Muslim Cohort of the Montgomery County Council Anti-Hate Task Force. She has worked with several groups across the state to combat food insecurity and other inequities, especially since the pandemic.
“At a time of increased reports of hate activity in Maryland, including anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate, I am confident that Ms. Sharieff will bring a critical voice to the diverse group of stakeholders that we have convened to help eradicate hate in our schools and communities,” Brown said in a statement.
Brown serves as the chair of the commission, which was formally created by legislation in the 2023 General Assembly session to seek ways to improve Maryland’s response to incidents of hate, and his office oversees its work. The commission grew out of a state task force on hate crimes that had been operating less formally for two years with a federal grant.
The 2023 legislation spelled out which groups would have representatives on the task force, including the Maryland chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Anti-Defamation League, the Baltimore Jewish Council and the NAACP. These organizations could then appoint their own members.
But the panel’s work erupted in controversy shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel last Oct. 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza, when one of the panel’s members, Maryland CAIR Executive Director Zainab Chaudry, harshly criticized Israel’s actions in social media posts. Brown temporarily suspended her from the commission late last fall.
Zainab Chaudry, spokeswoman and Maryland Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. File photo by Bryan P. Sears.
“The Commission must serve as a model for the entire State on how to respond to incidents of hate and bias,” Brown said in a statement at the time. “The Commission is facing its first test. How we respond has deep implications. I take this very seriously, and I will do everything possible to bring people together to move forward the critical work of this Commission.”
CAIR collected at least 5,000 petition signatures imploring Brown to reinstate Chaudry to the commission, and he later did just that, saying he did not have the authority to remove her the way the law that set up the commission was written.
The General Assembly this year subsequently passed superseding legislation that changed the membership of the hate crimes commission, taking away the rights of various groups to name members of the panel and instead handing that authority to the attorney general, though the state Senate must confirm most of the appointees.
That bill, from Del. Dalya Attar (D-Baltimore City), also mandated that a representative of the Maryland Public Defenders Office serve on the commission. It passed unanimously in both chambers of the legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Wes Moore (D).
But controversy followed a second Muslim appointee to the hate crimes commission. After Chaudry chose not to reapply under the new governing structure, Brown named Ayman Nassar, CEO of the nonprofit Islamic Leadership Institute, to the commission on July 31. But he resigned three weeks later, after being accused of homophobia and antisemitism by a pro-Israel group. Nassar said his statements had been misinterpreted.
Sharieff, like many other members of the commission, will be considered an interim member until the state Senate can consider her nomination. According to the attorney general’s office, besides Brown and Sharif, the current members of the commission are:
Peter Berns, general counsel, Office of the Attorney General
Jennifer Brown, director of the Community Engagement Department, On Our Own of Maryland
Kate Bryan, executive director, Maryland Center for School Safety
Kirsten Gettys Downs, executive director, Homeless Persons Representation Project
Ama S. Frimpong-Houser, legal director, CASA
Christine Dulla, deputy state’s attorney, Queen Anne’s County State’s Attorney’s Office
David Engel, director, Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center
Domonique Flowers, staff attorney, Maryland Pro Bono Resource Center
Michael Gray, deputy director, National Alliance on Mental Illness
Cleveland L. Horton II, director, Maryland Commission on Civil Rights
Carmen Jackson, volunteer with Carver Community Center, Women’s Action Coalition, and the Allegany/Garrett Citizen Review Board
Vicki Jones, president, Harford County NAACP and Havre de Grace City Council member
Rachel Lindley, director of diversity, equity and inclusion, Maryland Office of the Public Defender
Kobi Little, NAACP state director
Carissa Mattern, legislative director, Baltimore City Council Member Odette Ramos
Darryl McSwain, Maryland National Capital Park Police chief, Maryland Chiefs of Police Association
Gabriel Maximilian Moreno, CEO, Luminus
Deborah Miller, director of Maryland government and community relations, The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington
Katie Curran O’Malley, executive director, The Women’s Law Center
Nina Ovian, victim advocate coordinator, FreeState Justice
Sylvia Royster, director of educational partnerships, College of Southern Maryland
Everett Sesker, Anne Arundel County Sheriff, Maryland Sheriffs Association
Joraver Singh, member, The Sikh Coalition
Yolanda Sonnier, director of the Howard County Office of Human Rights, Maryland Association of Human Relations/Rights Agencies
Lanlan Xu, chair, Howard County Asian American Pacific Islander Commission
Brown, Downs, Frimpong-Houser, Gray, Jones, Little, Mattern, Moreno, Miller, O’Malley, Ovian, Royster, Singh and Xu are the other interim members.