A Guide to the Gulen Movement's Activities in the US
C.A.S.I.L.I.P.S.
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  • SITE INDEX
  • Who is Fethullah Gulen and what is the Gulen Movement?
  • Goals of the Gulen Movement
  • List of US schools
  • Gulen charter school information
  • Image vs. Reality
  • Advice for concerned parents
  • Essential Reading on the Gulen Movement
  • Every continent but Antarctica
  • Every continent but Antarctica: the numbers
  • Every continent but Antarctica: country by country
  • Every continent but antarctica: news articles & links
  • Yeni Aktuel's 2005 Tally of Gulen Schools
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    • Disclosure statement
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  • News - Gulen Movement
  • News - charter regulation
  • Turkic American Alliance member organizations
  • Accord Institute for Education Research
  • Apple Educational Services
  • Gulenist competitions
  • GENIUS Olympiad
  • I-SWEEEP 3E Sustainable Future Challenge
  • ISWEEEP 2011: Analysis of Bias
  • ISWEEEP 2011: Winners from Gulen schools
  • Olympiad irregularities
  • Gulen schools win medals at Gulen competitions
  • Private Gulen schools
  • Are Gulen schools secular?
  • Gulen schools: "philanthropy" & "self-sacrifice"?
  • Is the Gulen Movement a cult?
  • Gulenist Proclivity for Denial
  • Turkey 101
  • Gulen and the AKP
  • New power struggle emerging in Turkey
  • 3 quotes from Gulen's ally
  • Repression in the Name of Tolerance
  • More Repression, Turkey, and the Gulen Movement
  • Repression Part 3: Mar-Nov 2011
  • Imam's Army Epilogue by Ahmet Sik
  • Gulen and Saparmurat Niyazov
  • Rand Corporation and Gulen
  • MSNBC Turkish affiliate news article: Ankara University Professor claimed CIA-Gulen connection
  • Gulen, Kimse Yok Mu and Hamas
  • Two faces
  • "Fantastically disorganized"?
  • Statements by Ex-Gulenists
  • Life in a Gulen dorm in Turkey
  • Academia - concerns about objectivity
  • A propagandist thesis
  • Influencing public school curricula
  • Raindropillism
  • The Interfaith Dialog Bubble
  • Gulenist Turkey trip accounts
  • Ethics concerns: public officials' Turkey trips
  • Congressional Turkey trips
  • Elected officials who went on Gulenist Turkey trips
  • Are trade opportunities with Turkey so promising
  • My family was treated like royalty
  • Why Bill Clinton mentioned Gulen at the TCCNY dinner
  • Congressman Cartwright's Statements and Donors
  • Winning over Texas politicians
  • Investing in US politicians
  • Bayrock Group and $35,800 a plate
  • Gulenist state resolutions
  • Is the Turquoise Council the paid lobbying firm of Azerbaijan's government?
  • Awards: A Strategic Tactic
  • Turkic American Conventions: Politicians Attending
  • H-1B and E-3 Work Visas: Oct 1, 2010 - Sep 30, 2011
  • H-1B and E-3 Work Visas: Oct 1, 2011 - Mar 31, 2012
  • How the Gulen Movement has manipulated the US press
  • Covering their tracks
  • [Fill in the blank] Dialogue Society
  • "Gossamer Wings of Easy Promise"
  • Gulen v. Chertoff: Contradictions
  • 1997, 1998, 1999 or 2000?
  • Turkish exceptionalism
  • Name symbolism in the Gulen Movement
  • Gulenist Acronyms
  • Psychology of Belief
  • Brief Updates
  • Where can I learn more?
  • Fraudulent DMCA Complaint from Turkey

For Gulen charter school parents and teachers, and for concerned community members


by C.A.S.I.L.I.P.S. - Citizens Against Special Interest Lobbying in Public Schools  CASILIPS on Twitter, Slideshare
Note that this website has companion websites:  Gulen Charter Schools  and  Gulen in the International Press


IMPORTANT NOTE added Feb 26, 2017 updated April 2, 2017: Our entire companion site gulencharterschools.weebly.com with detailed, carefully sourced information on Gulen charter schools has been wrongfully taken down by our hosting service Weebly because of a fraudulent DMCA complaint originating from Turkey regarding only one of the 135 pages on this site. Click here for details. Even after Weebly was presented with evidence that the claim is completely false, they are refusing to reinstate the site without a "counter-notification" which the CASILIPS webmaster cannot file without losing anonymity. Even though the filer of this complaint committed crimes (perjury and copyright violation) it is highly unlikely we could ever take action or get compensation since he lists an address in Turkey. The CASILIPS webmaster is anonymous because of serious concerns about the Gulen Movement's retaliatory tactics. To understand these concerns, see for example the 2013 articles in Wired and International Business Times about an attempted cyber-attack directed at this website's email address. All citizens should be concerned about the ease with which a foreign interest group can abuse the DMCA law to silence critics and suppress information. The original site on Gulen Charter Schools is being reconstructed at this link.


We're assuming you've arrived at this website because you are a parent or teacher at a Gulen charter school.  You've somehow found out about allegations that your school is associated with a Turkish Muslim preacher and leader called Fethullah Gulen, or with the Gulen Movement (the name given to his network of followers around the world). 

Or, perhaps you are a concerned community member, who has heard about the rapidly growing chain of Gulen charter schools, now numbering well over 140 and operating in 26 states in the US.

You might also be someone who has been invited to travel to Turkey on a trip that, you've been told, is supposed to increase cultural understanding.

Whatever your reason for coming here, we assume you would like more facts about the Gulen Movement, why it is here in the United States, and what its goals are.

There is a large amount of conflicting information on the internet about Gulen and his schools.  The Gulen Movement itself has many websites, and they will not give you accurate information.   This is why we've put together this site as a place for you to get started in your research.  We hope you find it helpful.

The Gulen Movement is secretive.  Its activities and methods are complicated, intentionally obscure, in a constant state of flux, and difficult to grasp.  However, the essence of this Movement can be summed up in a single sentence, written by researcher Aydin Ozipek in his 2009 thesis.  Ozipek attended Gulen schools in Turkey, and had extensive direct contact with the movement.  He wrote:

“...the primary objective of the Gulen Movement is to increase its share of power.”

This is the common thread running through all the information collected here. 

It is also the underlying reason for all concerns about this Movement.  History has shown that when an individual or group is concerned with acquiring power above all else, it does not serve society well.



About C.A.S.I.L.I.P.S.:  This site is run with volunteer effort of citizens who became concerned about the growing influence of a secretive foreign movement in our public education system.  C.A.S.I.L.I.P.S. does not receive funding or material support from any other organization or individual.  We are opposed to any special interest group using publicly-funded schools to further its own agenda; these concerns range from Channel One, to "donations" of products to schools intended primarily to get schoolchildren hooked on particular brands, to the efforts of certain groups to inject their ideology into textbooks.  We also oppose government-funded vouchers for any religious or religiously-affiliated schools (regardless of which religion) on the same grounds.  Other concerns of C.A.S.I.L.I.P.S. include cases of bias and inaccuracy in media coverage of education issues, and special interest groups' efforts to corrupt academia and produce pseudo-academic, intentionally misleading "studies" to promote their interests (cf. "Merchants of Doubt" by Oreskes & Conway).
We are currently focused on the Gulen charter schools because we believe they constitute one of the most egregious abuses of our public education system for business/political interests.  We also feel this issue merits special attention because it has not been thoroughly covered in the mainstream media, because it is such a singular, complex phenomenon that many people are still in denial about it, and because the Gulen Movement is engaged in an intense public relations campaign to cover up the facts.  In the course of investigating the Gulen charter schools, we came to see that the issue cannot be decoupled from either the Gulen Movement's activities in the U.S., Turkey and the rest of the world, or from Turkish politics.  Because the Gulen Movement is using unethical tactics in an attempt to silence its critics both in the United States and in Turkey, we have developed an interest in attacks on freedom of the press in Turkey (including the arrests of many journalists and authors, some of whom wrote about Gulen) and the role of the Movement in increasing repression in Turkish society.



C.A.S.I.L.I.P.S. - Citizens Against Special Interest Lobbying in Public Schools  See also here
CASILIPS on Twitter, Slideshare

This website has two companion websites:  Gulen Charter Schools  and  Gulen in the International Press