Tipster Amy H. alerts us to news of a settlement between 15 year old Amandeep Singh and the Greenburgh Central School District in Westchester County, New York that will now allow him to keep wearing his kirpan. As reported on the website of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty which helped broker the agreement:
For peacefully observing the commands of his Sikh faith, fifteen-year-old Amandeep Singh was suspended for eight school days last month from his school in the Greenburgh Central School District in Westchester County, New York. Despite the ninth-grade honor student’s exemplary academic and disciplinary records, Principal Michael Chambless initially determined that Amandeep’s kirpan, an element of Sikh religious expression, was a “weapon” and suspended him. Today, after the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty intervened in his case, Amandeep received a letter from School Superintendent Josephine Moffett expunging his record of the suspension and allowing him to wear his kirpan at school.
The Becket Fund–an international, interfaith, public- interest law firm that protects the free expression of all religious traditions–worked with the international civil rights organization United Sikhs to convince the school to obey the requirements of the First Amendment and allow the kirpan.
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Amandeep agreed to wear a smaller kirpan of two inches in length that would be securely fastened under his clothes in a cloth pouch. He also agreed to allow school officials to make reasonable inspections to confirm his adherence to the conditions. The school agreed to expunge Amandeep’s record of the suspension and to ensure that no disciplinary action remains on his record. Today, Superintendent Josephine Moffett gave her final approval to the agreement.
“It’s a shame that a student, rather than the school, had to deliver a lesson on respecting the values of the Free Exercise Clause,” said Gaubatz. “But we applaud the school for eventually recognizing that sensible school policies that protect student safety need not–and must not, consistent with the First Amendment–compromise the religious beliefs of their students.”
Are all kirpans usually blunt? And are Sikhs able to pass through airport security without the TSA saying something about the kirpan? And if they do raise issues, what do you do if the TSA says you can’t continue with the kirpan?
I doubt they are allowed on planes. In any case, good job by the fund for religious liberty.
They are not allowed on planes. Even the most conservative/ orthodox Sikhs now pack Kirpans in checked-luggage while flying.
If Sikhs can check their kirpans in their luggage in order to fly, their children can leave them at home in order to go to school with children of people who would prefer not to have their kids’ lives endangered by weapons in school. If the weapons ban is compromised as some Sikhs demand, what is to stop someone from starting a new religion which requires its members to carry a loaded Uzi at all times after age 12? Will we then have legal challenges disputing the school rules against automatic firearms in the classroom?
What of the duty some Muslims recognize to kill the infidels? Will we entertain legal challenges protesting our objections to being killed by people who are only carrying out their religious duty?
Like all freedoms, religious freedoms need to be limited where they infringe on others’ safety.
The school kirpans are symbolic: short, dull and permanently sewn into their sheaths. Are you aware of the history of this issue?