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  Sikh Segregation Ends at MTA

  In a  historic victory for religious freedom, Sikh and Muslim transit workers settled a federal lawsuit challenging a post 9/11 policy which segregated them out of public view. As a result of the settlement, Sikh and Muslim workers may now wear their religious headdress freely --- as they did before 9/11 --- without fear of segregation or discipline. At issue in the seven year old federal case was whether New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) could force Sikh and Muslim workers to either brand their religious headdress with its logo --- while not requiring the same headwear branding of other workers --- or force them to work out of public view.

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• California Equal Opportunity Bill Moves to Senate; Sign Our Petition Today

  By a vote of 59 to 3, the California Assembly passed the Workplace Religious Freedom Act (AB1964). The bill now moves to the California Senate for consideration. If this bill becomes law, it will sharply reduce job discrimination against Sikhs and other religious minorities in California. If you live in California and support equal opportunity for all, please ask your friends and fellow sangat members to sign and share our automatic petition to members of the California Senate. AB1964 simply cannot move forward without strong community support.

  Click here to sign the petition.

• Texas State Curriculum Update: New Textbooks

  As you know, the Sikh Coalition, along with the greater Texas sangat, was successful in adding Sikhism to the Social Studies state standards in the summer of 2010. The Sikh Coalition's next step was to ensure that Texas teachers would have up to date information about Sikhs to teach.

  Recently, the Texas State Board of Education approved a new adoption cycle for instructional materials for multiple subject areas, including social studies. It is expected that new social studies textbooks will be adopted in 2014 for implementation in classrooms in the 2015-2016 school year. While the Sikh Coalition is disappointed with this delay, we will continue working with the Board of Education as well as textbook publishers to ensure that every student in Texas learns correct information about Sikhs. To this end, the Sikh Coalition has created teacher resources specifically for Texas educators and the new Social Studies standards. These resources can be found here, and have been disseminated to hundreds of teachers reaching thousands of students already.

• Bay Area Sikh Presenter's Course Graduates Continue To Have Impact

  Fifteen presenters graduated from the Sikh Presenter’s Course last May equipped with the public speaking skills and substantive knowledge to share the basics of Sikhi with non-Sikhs. These presenters continue to stay active and host presentations in the Bay Area. In the past few months, many of them partnered together to lead successful presentations at Evergreen Valley High School, James Logan High School, Oak Grove High School, and Turlock Gurdwara.

  An estimated 750 non-Sikhs were educated on Sikhs and Sikh practices because of these presentations. The Coalition would like to give a special “thank you” to Nirvair Singh for both working with the schools to arrange these presentations and for spreading the beauty of Sikhi to these educators. Along with Nirvair, several other Sikh Presenter’s Course graduates delivered presentations at these schools: Navjeet Singh Maddh, Meeta Kaur, Navjit Singh Bhasin, Tarandeep Singh Bali, Bhupinder Singh, and Satbir Singh.

In this Issue

• Sikh Segregation Ends at MTA
• California Equal Opportunity Bill Moves to Senate
• Texas State Curriculum Update: New Textbooks
• Bay Area Sikh Presenter's Course Graduates Continue To Have Impact
• Sikh Coalition Welcomes Summer Interns