Private: California v. Civil Rights

By Rajdeep Singh, Director of Law and Policy for the Sikh Coalition.

Consider the following scenario and ask yourself whether it is fair:

You live in California, work hard, pay taxes, and decide to pursue a public service career. You have a military background and apply for a job as a state corrections officer. Despite your qualifications, a state agency tells you that you must abandon your religion because of a demonstrably false assumption that you cannot comply with a purported safety requirement, which (as it turns out) is selectively enforced. An administrative body hears your case at a trial and determines that you suffered workplace discrimination, but the agency that refused to hire you flouts the ruling. As a last resort, you file suit in state court, and the office of the California Attorney General uses your taxpayer dollars to oppose you.

This is what happened to Mr. Trilochan Singh Oberoi, a Sikh American. Regrettably, more than a century after migrating to California, Sikhs in the most populous state in the nation still face regressive barriers to equal employment opportunity and the specter of being given the runaround by their own state government.

On November 10, 2008, after a two-day trial, the California State Personnel Board (SPB) determined that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) discriminated against Mr. Oberoi, who was denied a job as a corrections officer because of his beard, based on his religious beliefs, which in part require him to keep his beard uncut.

The denial of Mr. Oberoi's application was based on an armchair assumption that individuals with beards cannot safely wear gas masks. According to SPB, officials at CDCR failed to explore reasonable accommodations for Mr. Oberoi, as required by law, even though beard exemptions were allowed for individuals with medical needs, and despite the fact that Sikhs have worn gas masks in compliance with safety requirements in uniformed services throughout the world, including the United States Army.

After CDCR failed to comply with the SPB ruling, Mr. Oberoi filed a lawsuit in state court to vindicate his rights. Instead of counseling CDCR to change its discriminatory policy, the office of the California Attorney General (first under the leadership of Jerry Brown, now Kamala Harris) decided to vigorously oppose Mr. Oberoi and pursue dismissal of his lawsuit.

Despite the best efforts of some segments of the California government to frustrate the hopes of Mr. Oberoi and religious minorities more generally, hope is not lost. Earlier this week, after word spread about his case, more than 30 local, state, and national civil rights and community organizations, representing millions of diverse constituents around the nation, issued a letter in support of Mr. Oberoi and all others who stand to lose their civil rights if California fails to respect his.

So much trouble just to live with dignity.

Civil rights, First Amendment