Conservative Justices Cool to Religious Liberty Damages Suit (1)

Supreme Court conservatives appeared reluctant to expand the right to sue state prison officials in federal court for violations of inmates’ religious liberties, in the case of a devout Rastafarian who sued over the forcible shaving of his head.

Justice Neil Gorsuch led the court’s conservative bloc at argument on Monday in pressing attorneys for Damon Landor on whether corrections employees should be individually liable for contracts made between state institutions and the federal government under a religious liberty statute. He said it was unclear Congress had given state employees sufficient notice that they could be sued under the federal law.

“You say [Congress] could have done this 15 different ways in your brief. I agree with you,” Gorsuch said. “My concern is, it didn’t do that. It could do that, but it didn’t do that. It left it to the states.”

Landor was pinned down and forcibly shaved in violation of his faith while serving time in a Louisiana state prison. The Supreme Court agreed to hear his case after lower courts dismissed his lawsuit seeking damages.

His petition presents an intersection of two competing interests for the court’s conservative majority, which has sided repeatedly in recent years with religious litigants but also sought limits on what strings Congress may attach to federal dollars.

The Trump administration and Landor’s attorney, Zachary Tripp of Weil, Gotshal and Manges, argued the decision in the case, at least, should be a simple one given the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling allowing such suits under RLUIPA’s sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

But Gorsuch and his fellow conservatives expressed doubts about extending that holding to RLUIPA.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked how prison employees could even know they are subject to damages under RLUIPA, given unanimity among federal circuits.

“How could it be clear to states when every circuit said there are not damages under RLUIPA?” Barrett asked.

Gorsuch also dinged the government for reversing the position it took in the 2020 case. The first Trump administration argued explicitly in Tanzin v. Tanvir that RLUIPA shouldn’t allow damage suits.

Libby A. Baird from the US solicitor general’s office said the government “took a shot at the text” in Tanzin, but acknowledged the administration “lost badly.” She said the government was now trying to take to heart the court’s ruling.

“Well, that was RFRA and, absolutely, you lost badly,” Gorsuch said. “But you said with respect to state officials and RLUIPA that it doesn’t authorize. And now you’re asking us to believe that it was clear even though you got it wrong?”

Gorsuch, Barrett and Justice Samuel Alito also asked how far the logic would go if they ruled in Landor’s favor. Could a public school coach be sued for allowing a biological male to play on a girls’ sports team if Congress passed a law saying so, they asked?

“You’re asking us to take an important step,” Alito said. “It would be helpful to know where this road is leading.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, who has led the court’s conservative majority in recent years in decisions expanding religious liberty rights, echoed Gorsuch’s concerns about whether RLUIPA actually provides notice to state officials.

Roberts said the idea that prison guards understood they would be subject to RLUIPA suits just because the state receives federal dollars was a “legal fiction.”

“I don’t think when the prison guard is hired, he says, well, I want to see the federal conditions that you agreed to under the contract,” Roberts said.

On the court’s liberal wing, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned ruling against Landor would potentially put dozens of other federal statues at risk. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they had no trouble reading RLUIPA as the court had RFRA five years ago.

“I guess I’m trying to understand how Congress could have said it any cleaner,” Jackson said.

Louisiana Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguiñaga urged the justices to leave Landor’s petition to Congress to resolve.

“The answer is across the street, not here,” Aguiñaga said referring to the Capitol.

The case is Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety, U.S., No. 23-1197, argued on 11/10/25.