Metropolitan Transit Authority |

Jasjit Singh Jaggi serves as a member of the NYPD with his articles of faith intact, but only as a traffic officer, after winning his religious accommodation case in 2004. (source: New York City Commission on Human Rights)

It may take a lawsuit for the NYPD to allow Sikhs to serve freely

December 19, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

“There is no reason why the NYPD police officers can’t wear a turban and beard and do their job,” said [New York Assemblyman Dave Weprin] mentioning in particular that Sikhs’ beards [prevent] the use of gas masks is not true. “Sikhs can tie up their beards in a crop cut,” he said. …“They are not being as receptive to people that don’t look like them,” he said. — In the Gotham Gazette, New York Assemblyman Dave Weprin discusses the campaign […]

Categories: Civil Rights • Tags: Employment Discrimination, Gotham Gazette, Jasjit Singh Jaggi, Metropolitan Police Department, Metropolitan Transit Authority, MTA, New York Police Department, NYPD, religious accommodation, SALDEF, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Sikh Coalition, Workplace Discrimination

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Lessons learned in NY and the CA Workplace Religious Freedom Act

July 26, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

The New York Times published an editorial last month about the workplace discrimination case involving the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority and their Sikh and Muslim employees: This settlement should have been reached years ago. By dragging things out so long, the M.T.A. has deepened the sense of injury in the Sikh and Muslim communities. Prominent in the Justice case was Kevin Harrington, a subway train operator and a Sikh who wears a turban. After the 9/11 attacks, he was commended […]

Categories: Civil Rights, News Bits • Tags: AB1964, California, Metropolitan Transit Authority, MTA, New York, New York Times, Workplace Religious Freedom Act

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MTA officially settles with Sikhs and Muslims on ‘brand or segregate’ policy

May 30, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Earlier this month and as a result of a seven-year long legal challenge, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), which oversees public transit in the city, agreed in principle to eliminate the requirement that Sikhs or Muslims who wear religious head-coverings to affix a corporate logo on the head-covering, or be segregated out of public view. This policy was coined as “brand or segregate”. The settlement was officially filed in federal court today, and includes: Transit Authority employees will no […]

Categories: Civil Rights, News Bits • Tags: brand or segregate, Metropolitan Transit Authority, MTA, Muslim, New York, Sikh, Turban, United States Department of Justice

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MTA agrees to unbrand Sikh turbans

May 2, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

For the better part of the last decade, Sikhs and Muslims have been campaigning against a discriminatory policy by New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) that required followers of these religions to affix the MTA logo on religious articles of faith that were worn on the head, even though the MTA distributed headwear that did not carry the logo to other employees . For Sikhs, this meant that for the purposes of employment, they were required to attach an “MTA” […]

Categories: Civil Rights, News Bits • Tags: Metropolitan Transit Authority, MTA, Muslim, New York, Sikh, Turban, United States Department of Justice

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Considering the experience of Sikhs in America.

Tag: Metropolitan Transit Authority

It may take a lawsuit for the NYPD to allow Sikhs to serve freely

Lessons learned in NY and the CA Workplace Religious Freedom Act

MTA officially settles with Sikhs and Muslims on ‘brand or segregate’ policy

MTA agrees to unbrand Sikh turbans