Woman fired for wearing turban

The Sikh Coalition has filed a discrimination complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in New York on behalf of a Sikh woman who was fired from her job for allegedly refusing to remove her turban.
Sukhvir Kaur's manager, Rashid Paccas, also allegedly said to her that Sikhs were "thieves," and that he preferred hiring Guyanese and Spanish workers over Indians and Pakistanis because the latter were "dirty and nasty."
But Paccas flatly denied he had asked Kaur, who had immigrated to the US in 1992, to remove her turban.Nor had he used any derogatory terms to characterize South Asians, he said.
He asserted he fired Kaur only because she refused to carry out his instructions.
"She was insubordinate and refused to do what I asked her to," Paccas told India-West by telephone earlier this week.
"Why would I ask her to remove her turban? I am a busy man. I don't have time for that."
To accuse him of ethnic bias was "surprising" he said, "when nearly 80 percent of my employees are Sikhs."
According to her attorney Amardeep Singh of the New York-based The Sikh Coalition, 32-year-old Kaur, who had worked for nearly three years as a clothing clerk in the National Wholesale Liquidators store in Long Island City in the suburb of Queens, NY, was fired in October 2004
Her troubles began when NWL hired Paccas that summer.
The manager allegedly spoke in derogatory terms about Kaur's religion and ethnicity and more than once told her to remove her turban so he could see her hair and that he liked women with long hair.
Paccas also allegedly asked her to wear western clothing because she would look more attractive to him, according to the press release.
"I was humiliated by this man," Kaur is cited as saying. "He made very lewd and disgusting comments towards me and other women."
When Kaur allegedly resisted his advances, Paccas retaliated by having her clean bathrooms. He allegedly warned her that if she complained to anyone about him, he would tell police that she had been stealing from the store.
"That's a totally fabricated story," Paccas told India-West. "I have a maintenance man to clean the bathrooms. All I asked her to do was remove the merchandise from the boxes and put them on the racks. That was her job."
Paccas's assistant, Trilochan Singh, corroborated his boss's version of the story, even going so far as to say that Kaur was not only insubordinate, she was also insulting to Paccas.
"She told him, 'you stupid, don't tell me what to do,' " Trilochan Singh told India-West.
But members of The Sikh Coalition are not buying Paccas's version.
"This was a horrendous incident," The Sikh Coalition's executive director Prabhjot Singh told India-West by telephone.
"No one should have to go through this harassment. We are going to make sure that this company and the manager are held accountable for this."
"Some people act out their prejudices against people who 'look different,'" observed Manjit Singh, executive director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York, an organization that provides legal help to Sikh victims of hate crimes and discrimination.
"These kinds of incidents were happening even before 9/11, but are happening more frequently now. That is why the EEOC has created a separate category to deal with such religious-based discrimination cases."
If the EEOC determines that Kaur was in fact discriminated against, then the Coalition will "proceed from there," Prabhjot Singh vowed.
Over the last three years, the coalition has defended the rights of scores of Sikhs. It has helped 62 victims of hate crimes, 27 cases of racial profiling, 22 incidents of employment discrimination, and 17 possible prosecutions of Sikhs for carrying a kirpan, a symbol of the Sikh faith.
The EEOC has indicated to the coalition that if the EEOC determines that Kaur was in fact discriminated against, it would attempt to resolve the matter to Kaur's satisfaction, failing which it could take legal action against her employer.
The Sikh Coalition represents the interests of Sikhs nationwide. It was formed post-9/11 to educate the North American community on Sikhs and Sikhism.
The coalition also serves as a resource on Sikhs and Sikh concerns.