The Sikh Turban: Post-911 Challenges to This Article of Faith

of Sikhs, the community that is said to have “borne the disproportionate brunt of hate
violence in the aftermath of September 11,” 10 has not been offered. 11 This Article
(Oct. 2004) (discussing public and private racial violence against Muslims, Arabs, South
Asians, and Sikhs after 9/11); Sameer M. Asha, Immigration Enforcement and
Subordination: The Consequences of Racial Profiling after September 11, 34 CONN. L.
REV. 1185 (2002) (discussing immigration enforcement following the 9/11 attacks);
3) Identity issues: Volpp, supra note 3, at 1526 (“suggest[ing] that September 11
facilitated the consolidation of a new identity category that groups together persons who
appear Middle Eastern, Arab, or Muslim, whereby members of this group are identified
as terrorists and dis-identified as citizens.”); Jagdish J. Bijlani, Neither Here Nor There:
Creating a Legally and Politically Distinct South Asian Racial Identity, 16 BERKELEY LA
RAZA L.J. 53, 54 (2005) (exploring “the argument that because of their collective
racialized experience, South Asians should be identified as a legally and politically
distinct racial group for the limited purpose of encouraging group empowerment.”); and
4) Civil liberties generally after 9/11: Erwin Chemerinsky, Civil Liberties and the War on
Terrorism, 45 WASHBURN L.J. 1 (2005) (arguing that civil liberties are in a state of peril
after 9/11).
9 A number of excellent resources exist on challenges to these communities after 9/11.
See Deborah Ramirez & Stephanie Woldenberg, Balancing Security and Liberty in a
Post-September 11th World: The Search for Common Sense in Domestic
Counterterrorism Policy, 14 TEMP. POL. & CIV. RTS. L. REV. 495, 495 (2005) (arguing
that “racial profiling of Arabs and Muslims does not make operational sense because it
fails to help in narrowing down a list of potential terrorist subjects and succeeds only in
alienating . . . the largely untapped linguistic and cultural expertise that the Arab and
Muslim communities can bring to the table with law enforcement in a joint effort to
prevent future acts of terrorism.”); Susan M. Akram & Kevin R. Johnson, Race, Civil
Rights, and Immigration Law After September 11, 2001: The Targeting of Arabs and
Muslims, 58 N.Y.U. ANN. SURV. AM. L. 295 (2002) (examining the demonization of
Arabs and Muslims); Dalia Hashad, Stolen Freedoms: Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians
in the Wake of Post 9/11 Backlash, 81 DENV. U. L. REV. 735, 735 (2004) (chronicling
“government-instituted discrimination and racist implementation of policy” after 9/11).
10 Ahmad, supra note 8, at 1330 n.174 (“Many Sikh men, who wear turbans and long
beards, were targeted in post-September 11 hate violence because they were mistaken to
be Muslim. As a result, Sikhs have borne the disproportionate brunt of hate violence in
the aftermath of September 11.”). See Tamar Lewin & Gustav Niebuhr, A Nation
Challenged: Violence, Attacks, and Harassment Continue on Middle Eastern People and
Mosques, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 18, 2001, at B5 (“Perhaps even more than Muslims, Sikhs in
the United States have been singled out for harassment since the terrorist attacks, perhaps
because the long beards and turbans prescribed by their Indian religion give them a visual
resemblance to the terrorist Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.”); Laurie Goodskin,
American Sikhs Contend They Have Become a Focus of Profiling at Airports, N.Y.
TIMES, Nov. 10, 2001, at B6 (“Sikh travelers say that since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
they have been singled out for questioning by the police and security workers at
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