SALDEF (Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund)

SALDEF, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, is a national non-profit in Washington, D.C. that protects the civil rights of Sikh Americans through legal help, advocacy, education and media work. It calls itself the nation's oldest Sikh American civil rights and leadership organisation and names chardi kala (optimism), nimrata (humility) and seva (service) as its values.

How it began

It started in 1996 as the Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force (SMART), an all-volunteer group that analysed how the media portrayed Sikhs. In November 2004 SMART became SALDEF and began to take up civil rights, legislative, employment and accommodation cases.

Its leaders

• Baldev Singh, Executive Director until he retired in late 2018.
• Kiran Kaur Gill, Executive Director since 2019. She is a former president and chief executive of the environmental firm PARS Environmental and a long-time SALDEF volunteer and adviser.

What it does

Its legal work covers workplace discrimination, protection of the Sikh articles of faith such as the kirpan and kesh, and refusals of access to public places. In one case it won an apology and a written policy change for a Sikh man denied entry to a Georgia courthouse over his dastaar. It also worked with the Department of Homeland Security on a poster explaining the kirpan to federal screeners.

In early 2011 it announced SikhLEAD (Sikh Leadership, Empowerment and Development), a national youth programme whose first strand was a Congressional Internship. SikhLEAD now places young Sikhs in internships in Washington, D.C. (congressional offices and federal agencies), in regional government and community bodies, and, in Los Angeles, in film, television and journalism.

Key moments

• 1996: founded as SMART.
• November 2004: renamed SALDEF.
• Early 2011: SikhLEAD announced.
• 13 August 2025: SALDEF answered the FBI's 2024 hate crime figures, which recorded 143 anti-Sikh hate crimes. It says Sikhs remain among the three most targeted religious groups and that the data understate the problem.
• 13 February 2026: after Nikhil Gupta pleaded guilty to taking part in the plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York, Kiran Kaur Gill said: "No one in America should fear assassination for their political beliefs or advocacy." SALDEF called for accountability, including for any foreign officials who directed the plot.

Where it stands today

Kiran Kaur Gill leads SALDEF. It continues its legal and policy work from its Washington office and runs SikhLEAD as a summer programme.