SIKHS WITH BEARDS, TURBANS ALLOWED IN MARINES, US COURT ORDERS

Sat 24 December 2022:

A US Court of Appeals on Friday ordered the Marine Corps to let Sikh recruits maintain beards and wear turbans, rejecting a district court’s decision that said permitting religious exemptions would reduce cohesion, according to court documents.

“We reverse the district court’s denial of preliminary injunctive relief for Jaskirat Singh and Milaap Chahal and remand to the district court for the prompt entry of a preliminary injunction requiring the Marine Corps to allow them to enlist without shaving their heads or beards and while bearing those articles of faith,” the US Court of Appeals said in its ruling.

The court noted that the Marines exempted men with razor bumps, a skin condition, from shaving, allowed women to maintain their hairstyles and largely permitted tattoos — “a quintessential expression of individual identity.”

“If the need to develop unit cohesion during recruit training can accommodate some external indicia of individuality, then whatever line is drawn cannot turn on whether those indicia are prevalent in society or instead reflect the faith practice of a minority,” said the decision written by Judge Patricia Millett, who was nominated by former president Barack Obama.

The court also pointed out that regulations on beards date only from 1976, with hirsute Marines posing no issue from the Revolutionary War to the modern period.

While military practices can evolve, any claim of “inflexible necessity” cannot “completely ignore past practice,” the decision said.

The Marine Corps had refused to make religious exemptions to grooming rules during 13 weeks of basic training for three Sikh recruits who passed the requisite tests last year to enlist.

The three recruits, however, could maintain their beards and turbans at times other than basic training, according to the court documents.

Giselle Klapper, a senior staff attorney at the Sikh Coalition advocacy group, hailed the ruling, saying it meant that “faithful Sikhs who are called to serve our country can now also do so in the US Marine Corps.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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