Neil Gorsuch takes a wrecking ball to a religious liberty law.

Key Points:

• Damon Landor, a Louisiana Rastafarian inmate, had his head forcibly shaved by prison guards in 2020 despite presenting a binding appeals court ruling protecting his right to keep his hair under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).
• The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that Landor could not sue the individual guards for damages because they had not “consented” to be sued, significantly limiting Congress’ power under the spending clause to enforce federal protections.
• Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion introduced a new requirement that state officials must provide “voluntary and knowing consent” to be sued under spending clause statutes, a move that critics say undermines federal authority and could impact civil rights, environmental, and healthcare laws.
• The ruling weakens practical relief for inmates facing religious rights violations, as injunctions against prisons can be circumvented by transferring inmates, leaving little recourse for individuals like Landor.
• Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, warning that the decision threatens to reduce federal directives to mere suggestions and diminish protections for vulnerable populations reliant on spending clause statutes.