The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has continued its epic encounter with the First Amendment by suing the United States government on behalf of a former Navy enlistee who says the Navy refused his re-enlistment request because he wanted to grow a beard.
The ex-enlistee, Jonathan Berts, wanted the beard because he is a Muslim.
Berts sought a religious exemption in January 2011, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
The request was denied because, at the time, Defense Department policy did not tolerate religious exemptions for facial hair and other grooming regulations.
The Navy let Berts have his beard for his first four years in the service for medical reasons. (He originally enlisted in 2002.) Specifically, he suffered from a skin condition, according to Brice Hamack, a CAIR attorney.
When Berts later asked to grow his beard because of his Islamic faith, his request was denied, the lawsuit filed last week in a U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Calif. claims.
Berts, who is black, claims that his superiors prevented him from receiving a recommended promotion because of his beard. In addition, he says, he suffered “a barrage of derogatory terms, anti-Islamic slurs, and inappropriate lines of questions about his religious beliefs and loyalty to the United States.”
The petty officer who denied Berts his promotion called him “towel head” and “camel jockey,” according to the lawsuit.
The suit further claims that Berts was transferred from a comfortable job as an instructor to an “abandoned, roach-infested building” where he spent his days alone, watching over office equipment.
Berts agreed to an honorable discharge in 2011 but did not want it, he says. He has applied for re-enlistment and continues to serve in the Naval Reserve.
Since Berts left active duty, the Department of Defense has loosened rules about grooming, particularly as they relate to religious beliefs and facial hair.
“We appreciate that the Department of Defense has made strides in updating its stance on religious accommodations,” Hamack said, according to the Chronicle.
Still, the CAIR attorney said, the military must “remedy the harm caused.”
The suit seeks pension and other benefits for Berts, as well as a return to active Navy service.
CAIR has filed — or threatened to file — a number of First Amendment-related lawsuits in recent years. For example, in 2013 the Muslim civil liberties group asked government officials in Brevard County, Fla. to deny the use of a county-owned meeting room to a group CAIR has tagged as “an anti-Muslim hate group.” (RELATED: CAIR Tries To Ban Professor’s Speech On ‘The Islamic Threat To America’)
Also, in October of this year, CAIR (and CNN, and the Huffington Post) fell for an obvious hoax video on YouTube featuring an NYPD officer ignoring two Muslim men walking by, only to stop and frisk them when they walked past in traditional Muslim garb. (RELATED: CAIR, Huffington Post Fall For ‘Obvious Hoax’ Video)
The federal government is facing several lawsuits about religious facial hair.
For example, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in October in a case involving an imprisoned Muslim man in Arkansas who wants to grow a half-inch beard for religious reasons. Arkansas is among 10 states that ban facial hair for inmates.
In a case similar to CAIR’s Navy case, a Sikh man named Iknoor Singh has sued over Army ROTC rules that prevent him from wearing a turban and force him to shave his beard and get a haircut.
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