E-Mail This Article to a Friend MEN WITHOUT HATS It’s a wrap! BY CHRIS WRIGHT

In episode 40 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, a man in a theater berates a Sikh in a turban sitting in front of him. "Take that hat off!" the man says. Recently, a 22-year-old BU medical student named Deeptej Singh found himself embroiled in an instance of life imitating farce. The incident occurred on the night of May 14, when Singh and some of his friends decided to go dancing at the Hong Kong in Harvard Square. While Singh’s friends were allowed up to the third-floor dance club, he was not.

"The general manager stopped me and said, ‘You have to take that off,’ meaning my turban," Singh recalls. According to Singh, a Sikh who was born and raised in Philadelphia, the manager went on to inform him that the club has a strict no-hat policy. "I tried to explain that I wasn’t wearing a hat," Singh says, adding that appearing in public without his turban would be akin to "walking around without pants." His protestations fell on deaf ears. "He acknowledged that I had a valid point," Singh says, "but said he’d make no exceptions. This is a private establishment, and these are the rules."

This week, the Hong Kong management received a letter from the Sikh Coalition, a New York–based advocacy group, informing it that certain rules supercede its own. "This is plainly a violation of public-accommodations law," says Amardeep Singh, the coalition’s legal director. In his letter to the club, Singh quoted Massachusetts state law and Title II of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964: "All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment ... of any place of public accommodation ... without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin."

Though not available for comment at press time, the manager who barred Deeptej Singh’s entry made his case on the night in question, saying, according to Singh, that the young man, rather than being a victim of discrimination, was merely subject to a "blanket" rule imposed to advance public safety.

According to Amardeep Singh, incidents like this are on the rise across America. "We’ve had more [reports] this year than we had in the previous year and a half," he says. For the most part, Singh continues, the no-hat controversy stems from ignorance rather than malevolence. "I tend to hear sincerity from them," he says of the establishments he contacts. "They really believe that they’re not discriminating." He adds, "But there is a negative association with the way we look. In some instances, that is lurking under the surface, a dislike or distaste for the turban and the beard."

To date, every business Amardeep Singh has written to regarding this issue has gone on to adjust its dress code. "I guess they go to a lawyer and realize they haven’t got a leg to stand on," he says. For Deeptej Singh, however, the question of whether the Hong Kong will allow him to dance there in the future is moot. "I was embarrassed and a little angry," he says of the night he stood outside the bar explaining the difference between a turban and a hat. "I really cannot see myself going there again."