Staff

Amardeep Singh, Executive Director (National)

An attorney, Amardeep Singh is a co-founder of the Sikh Coalition and became the Coalition’s first full-time staff as the Legal Director in 2003. Amar has represented dozens of Sikh victims of airport profiling, employment discrimination, and hate crimes.  Along with Department of Homeland Security officials, he also helped to formulate guidelines governing the searches of Sikh passengers in U.S. airports.   With his assistance, New York City’s Police Department now allows Sikhs to serve as traffic enforcement agents while wearing their turbans.  He has represented the Sikh community during meetings with the United States Attorney General, Secretary of Transportation, and the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.    

Prior to joining the Coalition, Amar worked as a Researcher in the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch (HRW). While at HRW, he authored its report, “We Are Not the Enemy: Hate Crimes Against Arabs, Muslims, and Those Perceived to be Arab or Muslim after September 11.”  Amar has also written published articles on the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

In 2007, Amar was honored by the South Asian Law Students Association at St. Johns University’s School of Law during the law school’s Annual Ronald H. Brown dinner. He was also honored by New York Disaster Interfaith Services with a “Best Practices” award for his work on mitigating bias in the wake of public disasters. During 2005, he was honored by the Sikh Centennial Foundation as its Human Rights Activist of the year.  He also received the Chavez, Houston and Korematsu Public Service Award from Benjamin Cardozo Law School in April 2005.  In November 2005, Mr. Singh was a co-recipient of the Union Square Award, from the Union Square Foundation.  

Amar sits on the advisory committee to Harvard University’s Discrimination and National Security Initiative. He is also currently the Vice-President of the South Asian Bar Association of New York.

Neha Singh, Western Regional Director (San Francisco Bay Area Office)

Neha joined the Sikh Coalition as advocacy director and staff attorney in June 2007.

Over the past six years, Neha has worked on numerous human rights and civil rights cases. She represented 11 Yemeni men being detained at Guantanamo Bay, an African diplomat seeking asylum in the United States, non-profit groups in West Papua, and lobbied for grassroots human rights groups’ access to international courts. She spent nearly two years at Allen & Overy LLP, where she represented large multinational corporations in transactional and litigation work.

Neha is a graduate of Yale Law School, where she focused on international and human rights law. Most recently, she received her Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University. She completed her undergraduate degrees in English and International Relations from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Neha is also a freelance writer and a regular columnist for Sikhchic.com.

Harsimran Kaur, Staff Attorney (New York City)

With funding received in 2006, Simran joined the Sikh Coalition as a Staff Attorney in February 2007. Before joining the Coalition, she was an associate at Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis, LLC, a litigation boutique firm specializing in federal civil rights matters and race-based employment discrimination in Washington, DC. During her tenure, she litigated individual, multi-plaintiff, and complex class action cases.

Simran also held a judicial clerkship with the Honorable Alfred Nance of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, where she worked on a variety of civil and felony criminal matters. Prior to attending law school, she worked as a paralegal at Philadelphia Legal Assistance in Philadelphia, PA, where she represented the indigent in consumer and housing matters before state and local administrative agencies. Simran has also been a volunteer for the Sikh Coalition from its founding, previously working with the Coalition in an “of counsel” capacity, assisting with lobbying efforts and acting as a liaison to federal agencies.

Simran obtained her Juris Doctor from The George Washington University Law School,

and Bachelor of Arts in History from Haverford College.

Sonny Singh, Community Organizer (New York City)

Sonny started working at the Coalition in May 2008 as the Community Organizer in New York City. 

Sonny has been involved in movements for social and economic justice since he was in high school.  Since moving to NYC in 2003, he has worked in the labor movement for the union UNITE HERE and was most recently a Community Organizer at CHAMP – the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project – where he worked to build a new generation of HIV prevention justice activists. 

Sonny received his M.Ed. in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2003, where he studied and practiced the art of popular education, using education as a tool for social justice and liberation.  While in Amherst, he was also the Community Development and Programs Coordinator at the Office of ALANA (African, Latino/a, Asian, Native American) Affairs on campus. 

Sonny grew up in Charlotte, NC and Phoenix, AZ.  He is also a trumpet player, dholi, and vocalist, and can be seen performing regularly in the NYC area.

Manbeena Kaur, Operations Manager (New York City)

As Operations Manager, Manbeena Kaur is responsible for all Coalition operations, national volunteer coordination and intern management, as well as ensuring the fiscal management of the organization.   With a background in teaching, Manbeena has taught in Texas, New York, and also worked at the American Embassy School in New Delhi.  She has previously served in various leadership capacities from being an officer of the Sikh Students Association at the University of Texas to serving as a camp counselor.  She is active within the Sikh community as an organizer of educational youth activities and has been involved in various projects in New York.

Americorps VISTA

Paul Russell (New York City)

As an Amercorps VISTA, Paul is responsible for helping build the Sikh Coalition's capacity to further its mission.  Before working with the Sikh Coalition, Paul volunteered for the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan. In Kazakhstan, he organized a group of concerned Muslim, Russian, Chechen and Tatar locals who created a self-sustaining community resource center to curb underage drinking and violence. Over the past year, Paul lived in Sri Lanka where he was hired as a consultant for the Norwegian Refugee Council to document the practices and policies affecting two tsunami refugee camps. His report focused on about the lack of access to clean water due to federal/local government mismanagement.