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Sikhs
March to Protest Hate Crimes in New York
US
Govt Sues Company for not Hiring Sikh for his looks
A Texas company has been sued for religious discrimination by the United
States government after it did not hire a Sikh who refused to shave his beard
and take off his turban. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is
seeking punitive damages for Sukhdev Singh Brar, a certified security officer
in the Dallas area, apart from back pay and compensation for pain and
suffering caused to him. Brar applied for a job at the Champion National
Security Firm in Richardson in October 2005.
"When I finished applying, she (a company representative) called me for
an interview, and told me, 'I'm going to hire you, but you have to shave and
take off your turban,'" he was quoted as saying by CBS.
Brar says he told the representative what she was saying was against federal
law and his religion. "I cannot cut my hair. I cannot take off my
turban," he said.
"She told me, 'This is our company policy and we cannot change our
company policy.'"
The government wants the court to order the company to change its hiring
practices.
"Essentially, they're asking, demanding someone give up their deeply held
religious beliefs for a job. In that regard, I think it's very
egregious," said Bill Backhaus, EEOC.
Before the EEOC filed the lawsuit against Champion National Security, it tried
to resolve the case. But the government said the company wouldn't budge.
Since the 9/11 terror attacks, the government says there have been more than
1,000 cases involving people from the Mid-East or South Asia, the CBS
reported.
Sikhs
March to Protest Hate Crimes in New York
The Sikh community in New York marched through the streets in Queens Borough
protesting a spate of hate crimes against Sikh school students and calling
upon the Department of Education in the city to take proactive action to stop
the menace.
Nearly 200 people on Monday marched from the two gurdwaras in Richmond Hill,
which has a large Sikh population, to the Richmond Hill High School, where
Jagmohan Singh Premi, 18, was punched in the face June 3 after a student tried
to remove his patka (smaller turban). School authorities suspended the
attacker from the school soon after.
Within a week of that incident, Gurprit Kaur, a 12-year-old student at Public
School 219 in Flushing, discovered that a fellow student had cut off a portion
of her religiously-mandated uncut hair.
Last year, 15-year-old Harpal Singh Vacher's turban was yanked off and his
hair sheared with scissors by a fellow student in a school in Elmhurst, also
in Queens. The attacker was later convicted of hate crime.
Sikh men have become targets of bias crimes because of their distinctive look,
more so after 9/11. The Sikh Coalition, a New York-based advocacy and rights
group, released a report in April which said that almost 60 percent of the 400
Sikh students surveyed had suffered bias-based harassment or violence in city
schools.
John Liu, New York City Council Member who is on the Council's Education
Committee addressed the protesters. "Continuing inaction by the
department of education in the face of repeated bias attacks in our public
schools is utterly reprehensible, not only because of the bigotry and hate
involved but also because the department refuses to acknowledge the magnitude
of this persistent problem," Liu said.
In both Premi and Vacher's case, he said, the department ignored warning signs
and pleas for help from the victims.
New York City Schools chancellor Joe Klein had earlier met the Sikh community
and said new bias regulations were being implemented.
The protest coordinator Sonny Singh, however, said the education department is
reactive - it takes action only after an incident. "But the community
wants it to be proactive to prevent hate crimes. And we have resolved to keep
taking to the streets to achieve our aim," Singh said.
[Source:
GOPIO)
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