Source: The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/nyregion/18dreads.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the Grand Central Partnership in Manhattan on Wednesday on behalf of four security guards who say a policy requiring them to tuck their dreadlocks under their uniform caps discriminates against their Rastafarian beliefs.
The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, accuses the business improvement district partnership of violating federal civil rights laws by disciplining the men.
According to the suit, the four men — Deon Bailey, Brian Lee, Milton Marcano and Frantz Seraphin — were repeatedly reprimanded, and Mr. Bailey, Mr. Lee and Mr. Seraphin each received a two-day suspension in 2006.
A spokesman for the partnership said that it had been trying to work with the employees and their union to accommodate their religious beliefs, and that the lawsuit had come as a surprise.
Robert D. Rose, a supervisory lawyer with the New York office of the E.E.O.C., said the four men worked as public security officers guarding the area around Grand Central Station.
Mr. Rose said the partnership had a “personal appearance” policy that required its security officers to tuck long hair under their uniform hats. But Rastafarian beliefs ordain that men cannot cut their hair, and the guards’ hair is several years’ long, Mr. Rose said. He said the four employees had asked that they be allowed to wear their long dreadlocks tied behind their backs because they could not pin all the hair under their hats.