Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
A veteran cop who says he doesn’t identify as Caucasian, wants to change the racial designation in his personnel file from “white” to one he believes is more appropriate—even taking a genetic test to bolster his contentions—but claims the department won’t let him.
That’s according to a $1 million civil rights lawsuit filed by Officer Muhammed Yusuf, who joined the Chicago Police Department (CPD) in 2004 and “was compelled to identify as Caucasian, despite not identifying as white.” Now, Yusuf, who is of Egyptian descent and “currently identifies as Egyptian and African American,” wants a federal judge to make the CPD update its records to “accurately reflect his race, as North African.”
“While other CPD officers can correct their gender to match their gender identity, other officers, like Yusuf, are barred from obtaining accurate racial designations matching their racial identity,” the lawsuit states.