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Jun 23, 2023

Judge Rules Observant Sikhs Can Wear Beards, Turbans And Serve In The US Marines

A historic legal ruling has eased the path for observant Sikhs to serve in the

A historic legal ruling has eased the path for observant Sikhs to serve in the United States Marines.

The ruling has broader ramifications for service members of other faiths who also seek a religious accommodation for facial hair.

In late April, a preliminary injunction by Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia laid out rules under which observant Sikhs could attend Marine Corps boot camp. The ruling was the latest chapter in a legal legacy that began in April 2022 when three young men — Jaskirat Singh, Milaap Singh Chahal and Aekash Singh — sued to join the Marines while wearing a turban and maintaining their beards as part of their observance of the Sikh faith. The ruling builds on a legal victory won by the Marines earlier this year.

Now Sikhs who join the Marines will also be allowed to wear a kara, a symbolic steel bracelet, except during certain field training exercises.

In the interim, the three young men have announced different plans for their military careers. Chahal has opted to join the Washington Army National Guard, and Aekash Singh hopes to pursue the Marine Corps’ Officer Candidates School. The rules will apply to Jaskirat Singh, who is set to join the Marines.

The Marines are the last service branch to allow observant Sikhs to wear turbans while on active duty and until the ruling had not allowed them in the interest of uniformity.

"Sikh American Veterans Alliance, our partners, and the Sikh community are really happy to see this progress," said Lt. Col. Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi, a Sikh activist. "But it is frustrating that it took Jaskirat and the other plaintiffs over two years to get this accommodation to serve the country they love and call home. We want to dismantle the structural bias that forces patriotic soldiers to choose between their faith and service to their nation."

Kalsi knows something about that dilemma first hand. Kalsi was the first to serve in the United States in the modern period while wearing a turban. His own path to service was a turbulent one as well.

For Sikhs, a turban and a beard are articles of faith. When Kalsi joined as a medical officer, the Army had no problem with his beard and turban. That changed when Kalsi was called to deploy to Afghanistan and was told he would need to comply with regulations.

Kalsi launched a legal challenge to this. His historic effort is the basis of an award-winning film now making the film festival circuit.

"It is not just a baseball cap that you can just take off and put on at any time," he says in the film. "It is a part of my soul."

He based his challenge in part on the 1946 act of then-President Truman — though there are a handful of recorded cases of Sikhs pre-World War II who were allowed to serve with turban.

Kalsi is also a member of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The group sent a a recommendation to President Biden early in his tenure that read in part:

"We recommend that all branches of the U.S. military adopt a standardized uniform policy that presumptively allows for religious articles of faith such as turbans, beards, and hijabs."

One argument often used to discredit beards is that they interrupt the seal on gas masks. Yet, in the British army, Sikh soldiers used gas masks during World War I — the conventional conflict that saw the most poisonous gas use. Indeed, a Sikh soldier on the Western Front in World War I is also featured briefly in the Oscar-winning film "1917." More recently, one U.S. sailor who is not a Sikh posted a video on Instagram showing that even with a groomed beard he was able to maintain a gas mask seal.

The issue is one that not only impacts Sikhs but Jews, Muslims and some members of neo-Nordic faiths that prescribe facial hair for men. The U.S. Army in 2017 and the Air Force in 2020 enacted new uniform policies to allow beards, hijabs, turbans and other articles of faith to be worn while in military uniform. The U.S. Navy and Marines still only provide limited religious accommodations for sailors or marines who would like to practice their faith.

Currently, four U.S. sailors are suing the Navy over its refusal to grant a religious accommodation for their beards. One is an Orthodox Jewish sailor, and the other three are Muslim sailors. Their lawyers maintain the refusal to allow beards is a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which "prohibits any agency, department, or official of the United States or any State (the government) from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability."

Joseph Hammond is a former Fulbright fellow in Malawi and a journalist who has reported extensively from Africa, Eurasia and the Middle East. Hammond has a master's degree in Middle East and African history from California State University Long Beach and speaks enough Spanish and Arabic to discuss boxing, a sport he treasures.