Edina Lekovic

Edina Lekovic is the Director of Policy & Programming at the Muslim Public Affairs Council and frequently acts as a national spokesperson for the American Muslim community to media outlets, government officials, interfaith leaders, academic institutions, and community organizations.

Biography

Lekovic is a Bosnian American whose parents came from Montenegro in the former Yugoslavia. She is one of the founders of Elev8, an arts-based youth program which has a mission to identify, train and develop youth community leadership rooted in awareness, responsibility, and action. In 2005, she was pursuing her Master’s degree in Communications at Pepperdine University. The topic of her master's thesis was to understand whether Arab males' willingness to speak out on airline racial profiling is determined by their perception of dominant public opinion. Lekovic is also a 1999 graduate of UCLA where she earned a degree in American Literature & culture. During this time she was the Editor in Chief of The Daily Bruin, the third largest paper in Los Angeles. Under her leadership, the staff won a number of national awards, including the Society of Professional Journalists Best of the West in college publications.

Appearance in the media

Lekovic has made many appearances in the media including FoxNews, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and the History Channel. She has also written for several leading newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, Associated Press, Chicago Tribune , and Los Angeles Times. Lekovic has also participated in many national and international conferences and interfaith dialogues speaking on a variety of issues related to American Muslims.

In 2003, the Malaysian government invited Lekovic to be one of two U.S. representatives to the International Conference of Muslim Young Leaders, which was as a precursor to the annual conference of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).

Participation in lectures and presentations

• Defining the Muslim American Identity Post 9/11 - March 15, 2003 at Wellesley College
• Confronting Islamophobia - Dec 7, 2004 at the United Nations Headquarters
• The Rising voice of Moderate Muslims - Dec. 29, 2001, California

Controversy

On May 23, 2007 she appeared on CNBC's Kudlow and Company with Islam expert Steve Emerson, who accused her of being one of two managing editors of Al-Talib: The Muslim Newsmagazine at UCLA for its July 1999 issue, which contains the passage: “When we hear someone refer to the great Mujahid …, Osama bin Laden, as a ‘terrorist,’ we should defend our brother and refer to him as a freedom fighter.”

External links

• Project Elev8 - Official website (on MySpace)
• Edina Lekovic: Communications Director - MPAC Staff & Board
• Expert says women honored in Islam - DailyTexanOnline