TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Azya Thornton on Nov 1, 2024

A Muslim civil rights organization is calling on the Knox County Sheriff's Office (KCSO) to allow women to wear their hijab if they are forced to sit for a mug shot, Knox News reports. According to the paper, this is a policy followed by many police agencies nationwide out of respect for constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion. The statement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations comes less than a month after a Knoxville woman sued the KCSO in federal court because the agency published a mug shot of her taken without her hijab after she was arrested in May, and it still remains accessible on third-party mug shot databases. The woman is seeking damages and policy changes to accommodate Muslim women.