You can be an atheist. You can be a Buddhist. You can be a Hindu, or a Christian, or just about any religious identity that exists. What you cannot be, at least according to the First Amendment, is deprived of your right to follow and practice your religion. Even the institutions designed to confiscate personal liberty — prisons — are required to preserve worship and faith to the fullest extent before it becomes a matter of safety. And what happens when that requirement isn’t met? Well, apparently nothing.
Devout Rastafarian Damon Landor vowed two decades ago to never cut his hair as a commitment to the Nazarite Vow dedicating oneself wholly to God. Landor was incarcerated in 2020 and initially held at the Saint Tammany Parish Detention Center and later at LaSalle Correctional Center, where both institutions permitted him to preserve his hairstyle. With just three weeks left in his sentence, Landor was transferred to Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in Louisiana, where he explained his religious devotion, offered evidence of past institutional accommodation, and provided a copy of a federal court decision recognizing related claims to religious protection upon arrival. Yet an intake guard dismissed his documentation, handcuffed Landor, and shaved his dreadlocks on the spot.
Landor sued the Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety, its Secretary James LeBlanc, the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center, and Warden Marcus Myers, citing both 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) for a violation of his constitutional rights.[1]
RLUIPA, first introduced in Senate on July 13th 2000, is a United States federal law that prohibits governments from restricting the religious practice of any person confined to an institution, unless the government demonstrates that (i) the justification of the restriction is of “compelling governmental interest”, and (ii) that the restriction is enforced in the least imposing manner possible. The law, which stands even in cases where the religious restriction is a byproduct of general applicability, is pending interpretation by the Supreme Court primarily for its promise of “appropriate relief” to the victim should a prison, officer, or guard be found to be in violation. The debated subsection, Section 4, Paragraph 1 of RLUIPA reads:
“…A person may assert a violation of this Act as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government.”[2]
Landor v. Louisiana explicitly asks whether money damages ought to be included in the legal definition of “appropriate relief”, but implicitly questions the price of religious freedom, and by extension, how the absence of monetary damages might infringe upon rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit’s ruling leaves RLUIPA a parchment promise. The Supreme Court should hold that “appropriate relief” indeed encompasses individual-capacity money damages, not because it provides relief for one individual, but because a right without a remedy is no right at all.
I. Interpreting the Law across Sister Statutes
Landor sued in both an official and individual capacity, requesting money damages under both RLUIPA and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana dismissed the lawsuit by rendering Landor’s claims against Myers and Leblanc, the warden and secretary respectively, as moot. According to the district court, RLUIPA excludes a private right of action for monetary damages, and thus Landor had no reasonable premise to sue. Upon appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District decision, applying the Sossamon v. Texas ruling. In the 2011 Sossamon case, the Supreme Court held that no official-capacity damages were to be granted under RLUIPA.[3] Initially it seems that Landor’s claims are unfounded; if the Supreme Court ruled over a decade ago that monetary damages ought not to be included under “appropriate relief”, why would Landor’s requests for exactly that be fulfilled?
Sossamon left a door open to the possibility of individual-capacity monetary damages, a gray area explored by Tanzin v. Tanvir in 2020, during which the Supreme Court declared that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) allows for individual-capacity money damages. RFRA, commonly referred to as a sister or twin statute of RLUIPA, is a similar act that RLUIPA was modelled almost directly off. The Tanzin amicus brief acknowledges that “Congress copied RFRA’s authorization of “appropriate relief” into the [RLUIPA]… the provision for “appropriate relief” was taken from RFRA and that it authorized damages…”, thereby not only identifying the judicial relief clause of RLUIPA as taken directly from the wording of RFRA, but also including monetary damages directly in its definition of relief.[4] The decision further indicates that damages under individual-capacity lawsuits are the “only effective remedy” for some violations, including those violations imposed on prisoners, which thus extends to RLUIPA.
Another claim the Fifth Circuit recognized in the context of RLUIPA but was struck down in Tanzin v. Tanvir was the argument that RFRA provides protection against abuses by the government but not by individual petitioners, hence granting the right to sue through individual capacity. The argument presented and acknowledged in Tanzin underscored how RFRA defines government officials and any persons “acting under color of law” as government, again invalidating the dismissal of Landor under the premise that RLUIPA only applies to governments in the strictest sense of the word.[5]
It is clear that RFRA and RLUIPA relate through both intended purpose and clausal wording, and the following question becomes: to what extent ought the similarity between the acts shape their interpretation and enforcement?
It is useful to examine how RFRA was enacted, and specifically, to understand that it was born from the principles of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Both statutes were created to protect important civil liberties, allowed for an express cause of action against “persons acting under color of law” (which, when defined in Tanzin v. Tanvir, includes both individuals and official institutions), applied to the states and federal territories of the U.S. including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and ensured that prevailing claimants under either act could receive attorneys’ fees through §1983. Furthermore, RFRA was enacted in a context where the law and definition of remedies under §1983 was already thoroughly established, and Congress – even when provided the opportunity during their 2000 amendments of the definition of the “exercise of religion” – did not reveal any intention to alter the available remedies under “appropriate relief”.
This decision (or more precisely, omission of action) to leave “appropriate relief” as is indicates that monetary damages, included under the remedies outlined in §1983, can reasonably be thought to sit under the umbrella of RFRA’s judicial relief clause.[6] The Tanzin brief also notes that Congress generally explicitly excludes certain damage remedies; and with a lengthy history of authorizing damages for civil liberties violations, Congress could have, but actively did not, indicate “appropriate equitable relief”. Through the creation and evolution of RFRA, two premises become clear: first, that federal legislation is frequently based upon earlier models of similar statutes that aim to serve the same purpose, and thus that much of the translated substantive content of sister statutes ought to be interpreted equally; second, that Congress had the opportunity to omit monetary damages from its judicial relief clause in RFRA and chose not to, thus suggesting through context of creation that “appropriate relief” should not, or at least was not intended to, be considered solely non-monetary.[7]
II. Spending Clause Legislation and Standardization of Remedy
While Sossamon v. Texas ruled that acceptance of federal funds did not equate to a waiver of the Eleventh Amendment’s sovereign immunity, and hence that prisoners could not recover money damages from states in their official capacities, it left the possibility of money damages from individual-capacity lawsuits open.[8] The Fifth Circuit (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas), constituting Landor’s immediate circuit, alongside the Third, Fourth, Seventh, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits, have explicitly unauthorized individual capacity monetary damages under RLUIPA. In both Rendelman v. Rouse[9] and Nelson v. Miller10, the Fourth and Seventh Circuits respectively ruled that the phrasing of RLUIPA as a protection against government abuse eliminated the possibility of suing through individual capacity.
Even the relatively progressive rulings in favor of damages, such as Barnett v. Short of the Eighth Circuit, have still deemed individual defendants violation-free under RLUIPA insofar as they do not personally receive federal funding.[10]These decisions are best attributed to the most explicit difference between RLUIPA and its twin statute RFRA: RLUIPA is Spending Clause legislation, whilst the latter is not.[11] Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the constitution (otherwise known as the Spending Clause) dictates that certain conditions may be attached to the receipt of federal funding, and consequently that only states (or recipients of federal money) may be held financially accountable, or liable for money damages, for such established conditions.[12] In 1981, Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman paved the way for the clear notice rule, which mandated that Congressional conditions on federal funds ought to be made unambiguously clear to recipients, preventing states from unknowingly waiving their sovereign immunity.[13]
The Fifth Circuit relies on, and ultimately misapplies, the supposed contract of the Spending Clause in their affirmation of Landor’s dismissal. Primarily, 2023 Health & Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski rejected the narrow state-to-nation contractual view of the legislation, deeming that if individuals are allowed to sue to enforce the substantive portions of the law, they are entitled to sue for the remedies that the law provides, regardless of acceptance of federal funding.[14] Moreover, the official being sued should be considered an individual acting under the color of the law, rather than the institution of the state itself, and thus may be held individually liable – even without full unambiguous knowledge of the conditions attached to the facility of their work – for any violations of federal law.[15] Pennhurst ruled that states are entitled to clear notice, but provided no indication that individual employees should be provided notice of the possibility of lawsuit; qualified immunity protects officials from reasonable mistakes in the status quo, and it is arguably the responsibility of the employee to comply with clearly established federal regulation.[16]
III. The practical necessity of monetary damages
A. Deterrence
Broadly, the possibility of being charged monetary damages serve as a compelling deterrence for state officials and institutions against religious suppression. Religious minorities often suffer disproportionately from oppression and violation of rights in American prisons, as most prison officials are unlikely to understand, relate to, and/or respect the religious beliefs of those who are non-Christian.[17] Hence they are less likely to take active measures to accommodate or delegate resources to such minorities– and as seen in Landor’s case, some might be skeptical or hostile towards religious practices. In Chance v. Texas Department of Criminal Justice, a Native American prisoner was denied the right to keep locks of his deceased parents’ hair out of religious faith, because they feared his right to maintain something that other inmates could not would “breed animosity” amongst the prisoners.[18] In Johnson v. Baker, officials in Nevada forbade a Muslim inmate from keeping scented oil for his prayer because they rendered it “not that important to his worship…”, although the facility allowed nonreligious scented items.[19] While it is unreasonable to expect prison officials to have a comprehensive grasp of the practices of every minority religion, it certainly does no harm to be charitable in the cases where freedom of worship would not pose a significant safety threat. Such charitability is made possible by a powerful deterrent – the loss of (potentially personal) money – that materializes only with individual-capacity money damages under RLUIPA.
B. Injury Relief
The comparative remedy under RLUIPA in the status quo is a court injunction – that is, assuming the plaintiff is still incarcerated under the institution they are suing – which does little to relieve the mental toll and injury caused upon the victim of violation, especially post-release.[20] In Landor’s case, it had been nearly 20 years since he last cut his hair, rendering Raymond Laborde Correctional Center’s cruel treatment as irreversible and taking an unimaginably heavy mental toll. Landor’s suffering is not unique nor negligible. In Arizona in 2021, a Sikh prisoner had his beard forcibly shaved off by prison officials after he had gone his life without cutting his beard in any form. The complaint, remarkably similar in nature to Landor’s case, included descriptions of how the ordeal left the prisoner in deep shame, depression, and severe mental trauma.[21] Additionally, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has documented that incarcerated individuals with minority religious faiths – including Sikhs, Muslims, Rastafarians, and Native Americans – continually encounter unequal treatment and obstacles in exercising their religious beliefs.[22] Without monetary damages, there exists almost no relief for serious bodily injury.
C. Substitute for Moot Gamesmanship
In most cases, injunctive claims become moot before they even have a chance to materialize. Similar to how injunctions for RFRA violations of a student become moot if that student were to graduate or transfer, injunctions for violations of RLUIPA are mooted when the incarcerated individual is released or transferred to a different facility.[23] The likelihood of such circumstances is high: not only are lawsuits lengthy processes, the ability to avoid injunction allows state institutions to practice unfair gamesmanship through frequent transfer. In 2012 Alvarez v. Hill, for instance, the prisoner was released while his RLUIPA claim was pending review, leading the court to declare that he “no longer [held] a legally cognizable interest in the outcome of the case”. The blatant violation of his religious liberty – making it difficult if not impossible to observe religious ceremonies and communicate with representatives of his Native American tribe – went entirely unremedied and unresolved.25 If a court injunction is already weak, both punitively and reparatively, for the aforementioned reasons, then the absence of it leaves clear victims with no remedy or comfort at all.
Conclusion
In his Marbury v. Madison ruling of 1803, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote “…that every right, when withheld, must have a remedy.”[24] The right to freely worship and practice does not need to, and should not, halt at prison bars. Twenty years diligently observing a religious vow were fractured by a guard’s clippers in a matter of minutes, and to deny Landor any semblance of relief is to deny him an available antidote to a noxious poison.
Landor’s case does not exist in isolation. It is a window into long-standing systemic failure: over one million incarcerated people rely on RLUIPA, yet under the Fifth Circuit’s rule, it is nothing more than a parchment promise. A Supreme Court ruling in favor of Landor and his right to remedy would do far more than compensate one man. A clearer precedent will be set in federal law: not only that state governments and officials can henceforth be sued for monetary damages for egregious violations of religious faith, but a much-needed reminder to American society that the government places great value in freedom of worship and faith. A promise of religious freedom that cannot be enforced is a promise that has already been broken.
[1] “Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections & Public Safety.” Harvard Law Review 137, no. 6 (2024).
[2] U.S. Department of Justice. “Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.” Civil Rights Division. Last modified August 6, 2015.
[3] Harvey Leroy Sossamon, III v. Texas et al., No. 08-1438 (5th Cir. Apr. 20, 2011).
[4] Brief of Fourteen Religious-Liberty Scholars, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and Christian Legal Society as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents, Tanzin v. Tanvir, No. 19-71 (U.S. Feb. 12, 2020).
[5] FNU Tanzin v. Muhammed Tanvir, No. 19–71 (2d Cir. Dec. 10, 2020).
[6] FNU Tanzin v. Muhammed Tanvir, No. 19–71 (2d Cir. Dec. 10, 2020).
[7] Brief of Fourteen Religious-Liberty Scholars, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and Christian Legal Society as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents, Tanzin v. Tanvir, No. 19-71 (U.S. Feb. 12, 2020).
[8] Harvey Leroy Sossamon, III v. Texas et al., No. 08-1438 (5th Cir. Apr. 20, 2011).
[9] Scott Lewis Rendelman v. Nancy Rouse, No. 08-6150 (4th Cir. June 25, 2009). 10 Brian Nelson v. Carl Miller, No. 08-2044 (7th Cir. July 1, 2009).
[10] Brian Nelson v. Carl Miller, No. 08-2044 (7th Cir. July 1, 2009).
[11] Sanjay Tripathy v. Jeff McKoy, No. 23-919 (2d Cir. May 29, 2024).
[12] Government Publishing Office. “Overview of Spending Clause.” Constitution Annotated.
[13] Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Terri Lee Halderman, et al., No. 79-1404 (3d Cir. Apr. 20, 1981).
[14] Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County et al. v. Talevski, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Talevski, No. 21–806 (7th Cir. June 8, 2023).
[15] FNU Tanzin v. Muhammed Tanvir, No. 19–71 (2d Cir. Dec. 10, 2020).
[16] Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Terri Lee Halderman, et al., No. 79-1404 (3d Cir. Apr. 20, 1981).
[17] Brief for Damon Landor as Amicus Curiae, CLEAR, Landor v. La. Dep’t of Corr. & Pub. Safety, No. 23-1197 (U.S. filed 2025).
[18] William E. Chance, Jr. v. Texas Department of Criminal Justice et al, No. 6:2011cv00435 (United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Mar. 14, 2014).
[19] Laustevion Johnson v. Renee Baker, No. 20-17202 (United States District Court for the District of Nevada Jan. 26, 2022).
[20] Reed, Rachel. “Fighting for the Freedom to Practice Religion in Prison.” Harvard Law Today, July 12, 2023.
[21] The Sikh Coalition. Letter to U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, May 24, 2021.
[22] U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Enforcing Religious Freedoms in Prison: 2017-2023, Rep. (Apr. 2025).
[23] Brief of Fourteen Religious-Liberty Scholars, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and Christian Legal Society as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents, Tanzin v. Tanvir, No. 19-71 (U.S. Feb. 12, 2020). 25 Blackie Alvarez v. Jean Hill, No. 10-35865 (9th Cir. Jan. 20, 2012).
[24] Fallon, Richard H. “Constitutional Remedies: In One Era and Out the Other.” Harvard Law Review 136, no. 5 (2023).