New York to pay $23.6m for forcing removal of hijabs in mugshots

NEW YORK – New York City has agreed to pay US$17.5 million (S$23.6 million) to settle a lawsuit filed by two women who said their rights were violated when they were forced to remove their hijabs before the police took their arrest photographs.

The financial settlement filed on April 5, which still requires approval by Judge Analisa Torres of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, is the latest development in the class-action lawsuit filed in 2018 by Ms Jamilla Clark and Ms Arwa Aziz, two Muslim women who said they felt shamed and exposed by the police officers’ actions.

“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,” Ms Clark said in a statement. “I’m so proud today to have played a part in getting justice for thousands of New Yorkers.”

In response to the lawsuit, the police department in 2020 changed its policy to allow religious people to be photographed wearing head coverings, as long as the coverings were not obstructing their faces.

In a statement on April 5, a spokesman for the city’s Law Department said the lawsuit had “resulted in a positive reform for the NYPD (New York Police Department)”.

“The agreement carefully balances the department’s respect for firmly held religious beliefs with the important law enforcement need to take arrest photos,” said spokesman Nicholas Paolucci. “This resolution was in the best interest of all parties.”

Damages from the settlement, which total just over US$13 million once administrative costs and lawyers’ fees are deducted, will be split among the thousands of people who are expected to file eligible claims.

Ms Clark, who was arrested on a violation of an order of protection in Manhattan in 2017, said she “wept and begged to put her hijab back on” while standing in Police Headquarters at One Police Plaza with the headscarf around her shoulders, according to the complaint.

Ms Aziz, who was also arrested on a violation of an order of protection, said she had a similar experience eight months later 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 NYPD officers and more than 30 male inmates”, the complaint said.

“Forcing someone to remove their religious clothing is like a strip search,” said Mr Andrew F. Wilson, a lawyer with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, who is representing the women.

Mr Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of civil rights group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project and a lawyer for the plaintiffs, called the settlement “a milestone for New Yorkers’ privacy and religious rights”.

“The NYPD should never have stripped these religious New Yorkers of their head coverings and dignity,” he said.

The police department had previously issued interim orders that people who were arrested could be photographed with religious head coverings at precincts or taken to a private area to be photographed at One Police Plaza.

In 2018, the city reached a US$60,000 settlement with each of three Muslim women who had been forced to remove their hijabs for arrest photographs and said that their religious rights had been violated.

In response to Ms Clark and Ms Aziz’s lawsuit, the police department said it would change its patrol guide and begin training officers to “take all possible steps, when consistent with personal safety” to allow people who are arrested to keep their headwear on to respect their “privacy, rights and religious beliefs”.

There are a few exceptions to the policy, including for distinguishing features that could be hidden by a head covering.

The patrol guide now instructs officers that if an uncovered photo must be taken, “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”.

The policy change was one of a series of adjustments the police department has made in recent years related to religious head coverings. In 2016, the department said it would allow officers who wore beards or turbans for religious reasons to keep them.

Lawyers for Ms Clark and Ms Aziz estimated that at least 3,600 people could qualify for compensation of US$7,000 to US$13,000 through the settlement. According to the terms reached with the city, people who were forced to remove their religious head coverings between March 16, 2014, and Aug 23, 2021, could qualify. NYTIMES