FDNY Forced Muslim Firefighter To Shave Religious Beard: Lawsuit

NEW YORK — The New York Fire Department forced a Muslim firefighter to shave his beard in violation of his religious beliefs after he was demoted for having facial hair, a new lawsuit alleges.

The FDNY suddenly told Steven Daniel last year that he could no longer fight fires with a close-cropped beard despite allowing him to do the job with facial hair for years, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

Fire Department officials relegated Daniel to a desk job before he went against his religious convictions and shaved so he could return to the firehouse, said his lawyer, Aymen A. Aboushi. He's currently working with Ladder Company 10 near the World Trade Center, according to Aboushi.

The FDNY's policy forces religious firefighters into a "false choice" between their faith and the job that they care deeply about, Aboushi said. The complaint accuses the FDNY of discriminating against Daniel based on his religion and violating city, state and federal laws, including the First and 14th Amendments.

"You go through so much to do that job, to serve, and then to be told you can’t do this job that you trained for … because of how you worship was very upsetting for him," Aboushi said in an interview.

The FDNY declined to comment on the pending lawsuit but said Daniel was not demoted in rank. The city's Law Department will "respond to these allegations in the litigation after we receive and review the complaint," department spokesperson Nick Paolucci said.

Daniel has worked for the FDNY for 13 years. The Fire Department generally requires firefighters to be clean-shaven, but it gave Daniel an accommodation that allowed him to have close-cropped facial hair, his complaint says.

The federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration says workers who wear tight-fitting respirators, like firefighters, cannot have facial hair that interferes with the seal on the device.

But Daniel passed several "mask fit" tests that ensure the equipment fit properly with his stubble, which was no more than a millimeter long, according to Aboushi.

Nevertheless, the FDNY told Daniel in May 2018 that it would no longer grant accommodations to its facial hair policy, the lawsuit says. Daniel was pulled out of the firehouse and put on administrative duty when he initially declined to shave, meaning he could not earn promotions or overtime pay, according to the complaint.

Daniel "trained extensively to be a firefighter, and yet the Defendants removed him from the firehouse and essentially made him an administrative assistant due to his religious beliefs," the complaint reads.

Daniel ended up shaving about a month after he was put on the desk job, Aboushi said. But the FDNY never pointed to any incidents of a firefighter with facial hair raising safety concerns when it made its abrupt policy change, he said.

"They just one day called him in and said 'No, we’re not going to honor these accommodations anymore,'" Aboushi said.

Aboushi also represents four firefighters who sued over the facial hair policy on medical grounds in August 2018. The individuals had been given an accommodation because they had pseudofolliculitis barbae, a skin condition that makes it painful to shave, but the accommodations were revoked last year, their lawsuit says.

"They’re challenging the same unlawful policy but for different reasons," Aboushi said of his two cases.