Birthright citizenship, conversion therapy ban, trans sports: 5 Supreme Court decisions to watch in 2026
5. Rastafarian inmate dreadlock shaving
In the case of Landor v. Louisiana Dept. of Corrections & Public Safety, the Supreme Court will determine if Louisiana prison officials must pay damages to a former inmate who had his hair forcibly shaved in violation of his Rastafarian beliefs.
The case centers on Damon Landor, a Rastafarian who was handcuffed to a chair and forcibly shaved at the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center, with officials ignoring his religious objections.
During the oral arguments, Zachary Tripp, an attorney for Landor, argued that if damages cannot be awarded under federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, then “officials can literally treat the law like garbage.”
“It expressly authorizes suit against an official or any other person acting under color of state law,” Tripp argued. “That obviously means individual capacity. And then, once you see there’s an individual capacity action, the rest of it falls into line.”
“This court has already held … that officers in a federally funded state prison can be held individually liable for misconduct that threatens the integrity or proper operation of the program, and that describes this case to a T.”
Jorge Benjamin Aguiñaga, an attorney for the defendants, claimed that “RLUIPA does not clearly and unambiguously create an individual capacity cause of action for damages” and that, if even if it did, “Congress exceeded its constitutional authority” by doing so.
“It is extraordinarily important that the court reject petitioner’s attempt to radically expand congressional power,” he continued, noting that while there might be “valid” concerns over the lack of such protections, the “solution” to fix the problem lies with Congress, not the courts.
