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Sikhs go to court over turban logo
A NUMBER of Sikh transit employees in New York have filed discrimination charges over a policy requiring them to display company logos on their turbans.One case involved a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of Kevin Harrington, a Sikh subway train operator who has been forced to wear an Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) logo on his turban since January. Five Sikh station agents, meanwhile, filed formal complaints on the same issue with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The employees charge that the headware logo policy - introduced after the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Centre - amounts to discrimination. "The MTA honoured me for driving my train in reverse away from the towers on 9/11 and leading passengers to safety. They called me a 'hero of 9/11'," Mr Harrington said. "I didn't have a corporate logo on my turban then. Why am I being threatened with reassignment in a rail yard unless I wear one now?" A spokeswoman for New York City Transit declined to comment on the pending lawsuit, but confirmed that policy allowed for only MTA-approved headware. "Sikhs are allowed to wear their turbans, but they must have the logo," she said. The Harrington lawsuit was filed on his behalf by the Centre for Constitutional Rights and the Sikh Coalition, an organisation founded in the wake of the September 11 attacks to educate Americans about Sikhism. A number of New York Sikhs were badly beaten after the attacks, after being mistaken for Arabs. Two years ago, a Sikh man filed a lawsuit against the New York Police Department and its chief Raymond Kelly after being dismissed from the force for refusing to remove his turban or beard. Posted by: Spavirt Pheng6042 2005-07-16 |
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