Although he said he understands the Kong’s safety concerns, Singh said he finds the policy unacceptable.

“I understand businesses are concerned with their security,” Singh said. “I just feel the way they responded to this security problem was very irrational.”

Singh said that after arguing with Hayes and a bouncer he and a group of friends decided to go to Redline to see if a no-hats policy was enforced there, but the bar’s long line caused them to go home.

Michael Cheezum, another B.U. student who witnessed the conversation between Hayes and Singh, wrote in an e-mail that he was shocked the incident had occurred.

“They singled out Deep for his turban—a case of unlawful profiling,” Cheezum wrote. “And he is afforded the right to wear it by the articles I’ve described...Deep did not provoke nor deserve this.”

MAKING THEIR CASE

Shortly after the incident, Singh said he called the legal director of the Sikh Coalition, an organization that “seeks to safeguard the civil and human rights of all citizens” and “communicate the collective interests of Sikhs to civil society,” according to its website.

Singh, a Philadelphia native, worked for the organization last summer.

“When the whole event was going down and it became obvious the guy wasn’t going to budge I knew what I was going to do,” Singh said. “I’m outsourcing the legal side of things. In addition to my classwork I don’t have time.”

Amardeep Singh, legal director of the Sikh Coalition, said he has handled six cases of this nature in the past.

He said the Sikh Coalition has come up with a “standard operating procedure” for handling such cases.

First the Coalition sends a letter to the establishment laying out “their non-discrimination obligations under the law [to] see whether they will change their policy and allow Sikhs free access to the premises,” Amardeep Singh said.

The Coalition then contacts the Anti-Defamation League and, because these cases typically affect Muslim women who wear a veil, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The group also contacts a relevant state civil rights agency and the federal government if necessary, he said.

Amardeep Singh said no case has gone to court thus far.