OK, maybe I just telegraphed my personal bias in reaction to this quiz, so I’ll keep my opinion to myself until the commentariat weighs in. I’ll try, anyway.
New York City has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed in a 2018 class-action lawsuit by Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz, two Muslim women who claimed their rights were violated when police forced them to remove their hijabs for the police to take their “mug shots.”
The financial settlement requires approval by Judge Analisa Torres of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and I fervently hope…never mind! My mouth is zipped!
“When they forced me to take off my hijab, I felt as if I were naked; I’m not sure if words can capture how exposed and violated I felt,” Clark said in a statement. “I’m so proud today to have played a part in getting justice for thousands of New Yorkers.”
The Police Department in 2020 had already changed its policy to allow perps to be photographed wearing head coverings for religious reasons, as long as the coverings were not “obstructing their faces.” As we all know, of course, how faces are perceived are greatly affected by headgear, as Grace used to note frequently when she saw a baseball player without his cap or helmet in the dugout. Just mentioning it…
A spokesman for the city’s Law Department spun the settlement as a positive development. Hey, what’s 17 million dollars? “The agreement carefully balances the department’s respect for firmly held religious beliefs with the important law enforcement need to take arrest photos,” said Nicholas Paolucci. “This resolution was in the best interest of all parties.” The $17 million will be only $13 million once lawyers’ fees and costs are subtracted. That sum will be divided the thousands of Muslims and others who are expected to file legitimate claims for being forced to remove their religiously-mandated headgear between March 16, 2014, and August 23, 2021. It is estimated that at least 3,600 people could qualify for compensation of $7,000 to $13,000 though the settlement. The lawyers who dreamed up this class action, meanwhile, will earn millions.
Clark, who was arrested in Manhattan in 2017, said she “wept and begged to put her hijab back on” she said in the complaint. Aziz said that when she was arrested in Brooklyn, she sobbed as she “stood with her back to the wall, in full view of approximately one dozen male N.Y.P.D. officers and more than 30 male inmates,” the complaint said.
Imagine: getting arrested can be humiliating and embarrassing! But you see, “forcing someone to remove their religious clothing is like a strip search,” the victorious women’s attorney explained. Thanks to the lawsuit, the Police Department promised that it would change its patrol guide, with officers being trained to “take all possible steps, when consistent with personal safety,” to allow arrestees to keep wearing what the happen to have on their heads in in order to respect their “privacy, rights and religious beliefs.” If distinguishing features are hidden by the head covering—I already mentioned my position on that—the new patrol guide instructs officers that “the prisoner must be transported to the appropriate borough court section, where the photograph will be taken in a private area by a member of the service of the same gender.”
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Is the settlement a just resolution of a legitimate claims of police mistreatment?
(I just deleted my last comment on this matter.)
Ethics Alarms 
3600 women my have standing? That’s a lot of people…
That’s what they say, though. Those Muslim women…tough crowd.
Since it is “religiously mandated,” and they must wear it any time they are in public, than a mug shot taken with the hajib would more likely “look like” them if they were again confronted by police. I disagree with with the magnitude of money damages awarded. That’s nuts. It also seems inconsistent to me that any Muslim woman so sincerely devout as to feel “naked” without her hajib would be involved in criminal activity resulting in a custodial arrest, but that’s just me. Now if my church will just mandate my Stetsons….
Hell no. Equity requires that all mugshots be taken the same way. Doing otherwise would give one group an unfair advantage in the criminal justice system.
Imagine a photo array or a police lineup in which a suspect demands to wear her hijab. Does anyone believe these women would be entitled to wearing a hijab in a prison environment.
in this case there is a compelling state interest to require full face and profile photos of all arrestees.
Equal treatment under the law means just that no special treatment.
police booking should not be considered “public”. I begin to wonder if anyone tracks the $17.5M to see if there are any kickbacks happening to city officials to fleece the taxpayers.
She’s in a hijab for one crime; a ball cap a jeans for the next. I can see the convenience of claiming religious observance when it suits them.
So, do the mugshot only in the presence of women. Put in a policy that the mugshots are not released to the public, like driver’s licenses. THAT is a religious accomodation.