06/25/2026
An explainer on the Landor v. Louisiana ruling from our Director of Public Policy, John Litzler:
In a 6-3 ruling this week, the United States Supreme Court held that state employees can’t be held individually liable under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). The case, Landor v. Louisiana, involved a clear violation of RLUIPA and sought to answer the question: when a prisoner’s religious liberties are clearly violated under the law, what’s the legal recourse? While I understand the logic behind the ruling, I’m also severely disappointed in the outcome. For the first time since I began tracking religious liberty cases as an attorney, SCOTUS has sided against the individual (or corporation) asserting religious freedom protections. If a law says it protects religious freedom, but doesn’t offer a meaningful method for righting wrongs when that law is violated, then the right really only exists on paper. Here’s a more detailed explanation of how I view what’s happened:
What is RLUIPA?
RLUPIA is a federal law passed by Congress in 2000 to address gaps in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The law protects individuals, houses of worship, and religious institutions from zoning and landmarking discrimination when it comes to real estate. It also protects the religious freedoms of incarcerated individuals. Importantly, the mechanism Congress relied on for authority of state prisons in RLUPIA was the Spending Clause found in Article I Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. In order to receive federal funds, state prison systems must agree to participate in lawsuits where plaintiffs allege “certain substantial burdens on their religious exercises.” The SCOTUS ruling in Landor that the Spending Clause didn’t give Congress the authority to make state employees individually liable just because their state prison system received the federal funds. Instead, a state employee would have to knowingly and voluntarily consent to being sued. Practically speaking, this would rarely happen, if ever.
What happened in Landor?
The facts that gave rise to this case are nothing short of an absolute travesty. The case involved a man named Damon Landor who, in 2020 served a several month prison sentence in Louisiana's state prison system. Landor is a Rastafairan. Rastafarianism is a unique religion that emerged in Jamaica in the early 1900s and combines some elements of Christianity, mysticism, and Pan-Africanism. A key element of Christianity adopted by Rastafarians that is crucial to this case is adherence to the Nazarite vows found in Numbers 6. This includes the vow in Numbers 6:5, which was quoted in the Supreme Court’s opinion: “All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.” For this reason, Landor had long dreadlocks that he did not cut. As he was transferred from facility to facility during his sentence, Landor became increasingly concerned that one of the prisons might not acknowledge his religious right not to have his hair cut. As a result, he began to carry a copy of the landmark civil rights case, Ware v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, which was a 5th Circuit case that specifically held that under RLUIPA, the Louisiana Department of Corrections was barred from cutting a Rastafarian’s hair.
With only three weeks left on this sentence, Landor was transferred to another prison facility where he presented the authorities with his copy of the Ware case. They didn’t care. In a scene that sounds like it could have come straight from the book of Judges, the prison authorities literally threw the civil rights ruling in the trash, handcuffed Landor to a chair, held him down, and sheared him to the scalp. That Landor’s religious freedoms were violated in this case is so glaringly obvious that it was not the issue of the case. Instead, the case hinged on whether Landor had the right to sue, for monetary damages, the individual Louisiana Department of Corrections employees who violated his rights. A divided 6-3 Supreme Court ultimately held that he did not.
Rastafarians are a very small religious minority group with less than a million adherents worldwide, many religious groups voiced support in support of Landor and his plight, including Baptists. The SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief supporting Landor’s claims. Baptists have long supported the protection of religious freedoms for all people regardless of their individual faith.
What does it mean?
For years, when talking to Texas Baptists I would emphasize the long and impressive track record of SCOTUS under the tenure of Chief Justice John Roberts as being pro-religious liberty. While there is often a public misconception that religious freedoms are being eroded in America, in our nation’s highest court, the results haven . In every case fully briefed and argued on the merits, SCOTUS sided with the individual or, as in the case of Hobby Lobby, corporation, asserting religious liberty protection. That was the case, until this week.
While I still believe religious liberty protections in our country are very strong, the Landor ruling serves as a stark reminder on the eve of America’s 250th birthday, that religious freedom is a fragile value in need of protecting. I can no longer use words like “always” and “every time” when describing SCOTUS’ track record with regard to supporting religious freedom. I’ll leave it to the Constitutional law scholars to debate and determine whether SCOTUS’ interpretation of Congress’ power under the Spending Clause is correct or incorrect. Ultimately, however, the ruling leaves a crucial gap in religious liberty protections under RLUIPA for those incarcerated in state prisons that receive federal funding. That gap empowers state prison authorities to violate the religious freedoms of inmates with little recourse against such injustices.
What should we do?
Texas Baptists need to continue to educate ourselves on the history of Baptists’ fight to secure religious freedom protections for all Americans at the founding of our nation and we need to be willing to advocate and continue the good fight to protect these God given rights. Religious Liberty is a crucial and cherished Baptist distinctive and it's imperative we do what we can to protect those rights.
