Religiously observant D.C. firefighters and paramedics requested a federal district courtroom Monday to throw out a 2020 metropolis coverage limiting facial hair, a transfer they are saying violates a judicial ruling that blocks the Fireplace and Emergency Medical Companies Division from prohibiting beards.
“The District of Columbia has already been ordered by the courtroom to guard the non secular liberty rights of paramedics and firefighters, and particularly, to permit our shoppers to maintain their beards whereas on responsibility,” First Liberty Institute senior counsel Jordan Pratt, who represents the FEMS staff, mentioned in an announcement. “The District is plainly violating that courtroom order. It’s previous time for the District to comply with the legislation and the courtroom.”
Firefighters and paramedics Steven Chasin, Calvert Potter, Jasper Sterling and Hassan Umrani say the division stands in “blatant violation” of a 2007 everlasting injunction settling an earlier lawsuit filed by the boys over the coverage.
The 4 “are longtime firefighters and paramedics who, years in the past, efficiently introduced swimsuit to enjoin an illegal division coverage that largely prohibited District firefighters and paramedics from sustaining facial hair,” the attraction famous. The doc said every “wears a beard in accordance with the tenets of his Muslim or Jewish religion.”
The 4 had been faraway from “subject responsibility” in March 2020 for refusing orders to shave, which they mentioned violated the 2007 injunction in addition to the federal Non secular Freedom Restoration Act, handed by Congress in 1993 and signed into legislation by President Clinton. They are saying they weren’t allowed to return to subject positions till the top of 2021, greater than 18 months later.
Amongst different arguments, the hearth division has maintained that beards may forestall a correct seal on sure sorts of self-contained respiratory equipment, though the division has conceded that almost all of these gadgets can work on beard-wearers.
“This determination to disregard a binding courtroom order is merely the most recent step within the division’s multi-decade campaign to compel District firefighters and paramedics to adapt to the division’s clean-shave desire, with out regard for his or her non secular liberties,” the criticism mentioned.
The 4 are searching for a discovering of civil contempt towards FEMS in addition to “acceptable compensatory damages” for his or her removing from subject responsibility.
A FEMS spokeswoman referred The Washington Instances to the District’s Workplace of Legal professional Common, which didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
