NYPD Resolves Civil Rights Class Action with New Facial Hair Policy

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

The New York Police Department has agreed to resolve a civil rights class action lawsuit by revising its policy on facial hair.

Plaintiff Masood Syed filed this civil rights class action lawsuit in June 2016 to challenge the NYPD’s religious accommodation policy for facial hair.

The department’s policy prohibited officers from wearing a beard more than a millimeter long. The NYPD’s stated reason for the policy was that facial hair interfered with the fit of gas masks.

Syed, who is a practicing Sunni Muslim, has worked for the NYPD since 2006 as an officer and a law clerk. He wears a beard as required by his sincerely held religious beliefs, according to his NYPD class action lawsuit.

When Syed joined the NYPD, he was allowed to keep his beard under a medical accommodation. He later requested to keep the beard under a religious accommodation.

In 2011, Syed was required to sign a document requiring him to keep his beard trimmed to a length of one millimeter or less – though he claims other department members were allowed to maintain longer beards.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2015 that a supervisor finally insisted Syed shave his beard to comply with the department’s facial hair policy, he claims. When he refused to shave, he was suspended without pay or benefits. He alleges he was immediately relieved of his gun and badge and was escorted out of One Police Plaza.

Shortly after Syed sued the department, NYPD reinstated him to his prior position and compensation. The department also undertook a 120-day review of its facial hair policy.

In December 2016, with Syed’s lawsuit still pending, NYPD issued a new facial hair policy allowing uniformed department members to grow beards of up to one-half inch with the written approval of the department’s Deputy Commissioner of Equal Employment Opportunity. Longer beards could be permitted on a case-by-case basis if approved following an interactive process.

The new policy also made bearded officers ineligible for training or certification for gas mask use, preventing them from serving in units or positions that might require gas mask use.

After several months of negotiations, the parties agreed to a settlement in principle in October 2017. Under terms of the settlement, the department will undergo an 18-month long review of its religious accommodation process for facial hair. The city has also agreed to pay Syed’s attorneys’ fees and court costs.

The new NYPD policy also allows officers to wear turbans in place of the usual police cap, a change that will benefit officers who are practicing Sikhs.

If approved by the court, the settlement Class will cover all NYPD employees subject to the Patrol Guide 203-07(10) who from three years prior to the filing of this action to the effective date of the settlement either requested or received a religious accommodation from the NYPD to wear a beard.

Syed is represented by attorneys from Beldock Levine & Hoffman.

The NYPD Facial Hair Religious Exception Class Action Lawsuit is Syed v. City of New York, et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-04789-PGG-KNF, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.