Supreme Court Eliminates Path to Justice for Religious Persecution

WASHINGTON, D.C.,  June 23, 2026 – Today the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety, ruling 6–3 that there is no meaningful accountability for incarcerated people when prison officials violate their religious freedoms. Agreeing with the conservative Fifth Circuit, the Court found that government officials, including those that abuse their power as prison staff, cannot be sued in their personal capacity. Without real accountability to govern misconduct, there is no safety.

In Landor, state prison officials blatantly violated the religious freedoms of an incarcerated person. Congress intended the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) to protect people from those very violations. But Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority, insists RLUIPA does not allow the individuals involved to be sued for monetary remedies unless they consented to be liable. The prison itself may be held liable under the law, but the prison officials cannot be.

Writing for the liberal justices’ dissent, Justice Jackson contends: “This severance of rights and remedies is a sleight of hand,” inviting a law to be ignored if individuals simply choose not to be penalized under it. “In the end, the Court reduces some of Congress’s greatest legislative achievements — federal laws that secure civil rights, environmental stability, healthcare, and more — to nothing more than the wheelings-and-dealings of an especially wealthy private party.”

Alliance for Justice President Rachel Rossi issued the following statement:

“Our justice system is built on the promise of accountability when rights are violated. If there is no remedy for such a transgression, then there is no justice. This ruling will further erode critical civil rights protections of the far too many incarcerated people in this country. And if the Court is not willing to uphold these protections for those held under the charge and custody of the government, we shouldn’t count on it to uphold them for any of us.”