Two cadets who are observant Sikhs and who enrolled in the U.S. Military Academy at West Point filed suit in a Michigan federal district court yesterday contending that the Army has failed to follow its own regulations that allow Sikhs to serve without giving up their Sikh grooming and dress obligations. The complaint (
full text) in
New Cadet Candidate Chahal v. Seamands, (ED MI, filed 8/14/2017), asserts that the Sikh cadets
are only welcome to remain at the Academy with their unshorn hair, beards, and turban on one condition: they must agree to wear the West Point “tar bucket”—a decorative hat worn in ceremonial parades a few times each year....
For them, wearing the tar bucket over, or in place of, their turbans would desecrate their religious values....
The suit claims that requiring the cadets to wear the "tar bucket" violates their rights under the 1st and 5th Amendments and under RFRA.
Courthouse News Service reports on the lawsuit.
