MANHATTAN (CN) — New York City agreed on Friday to pay a $17.5 million settlement to resolve a class action civil rights lawsuit brought by New York women who were forced to remove their religious headscarves in NYPD mugshot photos for the department's facial recognition database.
Two Muslim women — Jamilla Clark from New Jersey and Arwa Aziz from Brooklyn — along with the Muslim advocacy group Turning Point for Women and Families brought a class action complaint against the city in 2018, claiming that the New York Police Department’s policy of forcing religious observant women to remove their hijabs violated the New York State Constitution, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).
Under the preliminary settlement announced Friday, 3,600 class members, which includes men and women who were forced to remove any and all religious head coverings, will be eligible for payments of approximately $7,000 to $13,000.
“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 announcing the settlement. “I’m so proud today to have played a part in getting justice for thousands of New Yorkers. This settlement proves I was right all those years ago when I said it was wrong to remove my hijab for a mugshot.”
Attorney Andrew Wilson with the law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, who led the class action, compared the forced removal of religious clothing to a strip search.
“This substantial settlement recognizes the profound harm to the dignity of those who wear religious head coverings that comes from forced removal,” he said in statement. “Anyone who was subjected to this policy can now receive compensation for harm in the past. And the changes to the prior policy we have already obtained will protect New Yorkers in the future.”
The new NYPD photograph policy will include other religious headwear, including Sheitel wigs and yarmulkes worn by Jews, and Dastar turbans worn by Sikhs.
Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn 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,” Cahn said in a statement Friday. “Money can’t fully undo this trauma, but it sends a powerful message that the NYPD can’t violate New Yorkers’ First Amendment rights without paying a price.”
Attorneys’ fees and administrative costs of $4.5 million will come out of the settlement amount.
Co-plaintiff Turning Point for Women and Families provides free and confidential counseling, advocacy and referral services for Muslim women and children affected by domestic violence.
The civil rights groups urge anyone who believes that they were impacted by the policy and forced by the NYPD to remove their head covering for a mugshot between March 16, 2014 and August 23, 2021 to file a notice to receive payment.
Follow @jruss_jruss
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
-
Practicing in prison April 12, 2024
-
Prison stabbing April 12, 2024 -
