{"id":60397,"date":"2015-06-16T11:54:56","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T15:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=60397"},"modified":"2015-06-16T11:54:56","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T15:54:56","slug":"iknoor-singh-wins-suit-against-army-grooming-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=60397","title":{"rendered":"Iknoor Singh wins suit against Army grooming standards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iknoor Singh, a Sikh ROTC student has successfully sued the Army so that he can continue to wear his turban and remain unshaven when he enters the service according to the Long Island Press<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Iknoor Singh, a sophomore, sued the U.S. Army last year for racial discrimination after the military agency refused his admittance into Hofstra\u2019s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program and later denied a religious accommodation request. The Army had previously notified him that he would not be allowed to enlist until he complied with their grooming and uniform policies. Singh\u2019s attorneys argued that forcing the student to cut his hair, shave his beard and forgo his turban violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).<\/p>\n

The federal court agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the tens of thousands of exceptions the Army has already made to its grooming and uniform policies, its successful accommodation of observant Sikhs in the past, and the fact that, at this time, [Singh] is seeking only to enroll in the ROTC program, the Army\u2019s refusal to permit him to do so while adhering to his faith cannot survive the strict scrutiny that RFRA demands,\u201d U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote in the court\u2019s decision.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have nothing against Sikhs, they have a proud and courageous warrior tradition, but I think the first time that young Iknoor Singh experiences the gas chamber, he might question his victory when he can’t get a good seal on his mask. <\/p>\n

Yeah, I know it was popular during this war for unconventional troopers to grow beards to blend in with their environment, but there is a reason that most of us prefer to be reasonably clean shaven – that being personal hygiene. I grew one for the first time a few years ago until I got tired of smelling my last meal all of the time.<\/p>\n

The court cited the Army\u2019s own internal examination of the effect one such soldier\u2019s religious accommodation had on his service and found that it \u201cdid not have a significant impact on unit morale, cohesion, good order and discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four service members identified in the court\u2019s decision had received an accommodation permitting them to serve despite maintaining beards and [unshorn] hair covered by turbans, the court found.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OK, fine. It’s not a big deal, well, until it is. Personal hygiene is different in the office than personal hygiene in the field. I’m just not sure that I like the courts telling the military how to conduct their business. Yeah, that’s probably my biggest gripe about this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iknoor Singh, a Sikh ROTC student has successfully sued the Army so that he can continue … Iknoor Singh wins suit against Army grooming standards<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-army-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/60398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}