A Muslim cop who was suspended without pay for sporting a beard has been reinstated as the NYPD reviews its policy on facial hair, officials said Friday.
Police Officer Masood Syed has been ordered back to work as the internal review begins, a spokesman for Public Advocate Letitia James said. The review should take about three months to complete, the spokesman said.
The NYPD confirmed that Syed was put back on full duty on June 24, but could not immediately confirm the department review.
Syed, a 10-year veteran of the NYPD who works in the department as a law clerk, filed a federal discrimination suit against the department last month in Manhattan, claiming he was suspended and was ordered to shave his beard, which he wears in observance of his Sunni Muslim faith.
James had fired off a letter to NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton last week demanding that Syed be reinstated.
“We are a large and diverse people of many faiths and traditions. If the (Department of Defense) can permit our armed forces to grow beards and even wear turbans, surely the NYPD may make such an accommodation,” James wrote.
On Friday, James said she was happy that Syed was back on the job.
“We do not stand for institutionalized religious discrimination in our City, and certainly not from the organization that is supposed to protect us,” James said. “New York City cannot live up to its reputation as the epicenter of diversity if inclusion is not the law of the land.”
Syed was approached by a captain in December, 2015, and told that his beard was not in compliance with the NYPD policy.
Syed was in the process of appealing the decision when the captain suspended him without pay last month.
While the NYPD maintains a “no beard” policy, facial hair up to 1 millimeter (about four-hundredths of an inch) is the unofficial exception for religious purposes, Syed’s lawyers said in a civil complaint filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
Syed, 32, has been working on getting a religious accommodation letter that will allow him to wear his beard at its present length.
Attempts to reach Syed or his attorney were unsuccessful Friday afternoon.