RLUIPA specifically applies to land use or zoning laws as they relate to religious organizations and religious uses and to protections for institutionalized persons, including individuals in prisons, juvenile detention centers and other government-run facilities.
Both RLUIPA and its sister statute, the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act of 1993, prohibit governments from placing a substantial burden on an individual’s religious exercise unless the government can show that imposing the burden is necessary to further the government’s compelling interest and that imposing the burden is also the least restrictive way of furthering the government interest.
For institutionalized persons, such as those in prison, this means that they should be granted accommodations, if necessary, to allow them to practice their faith if there isn’t a compelling government reason for not allowing the accommodation. Often safety was used as the justification for denying prisoners’ requests for religious accommodation. The argument was made that allowing religious accommodations would interfere with discipline, order or safety. However often times these arguments failed to identify how granting accommodation would actually negatively impact safety.
RLUIPA is designed to protect the constitutional rights of individuals who historically were often arbitrarily denied the right to practice their faith after incarceration or institutionalization. And these days some common RLUIPA accommodations include:
Providing prisoners with religious diets such as kosher, halal or vegetarian meals or allowing fasting during religious observances,
Allowing prisoners access to religious materials such as a Bible, Qur’an, Torah or other religious text,
Allowing prisoners to wear religious headwear or follow religious grooming practices as wearing a hijab, yarmulke, having prayer beads, or growing a beard or hair, and
Allowing prisoners to participate in religious services such as Sabbath services or Bible studies.
In recent years, the Supreme Court has protected the rights for a Muslim inmate to grow and keep a short beard as part of his faith, and for a Christian inmate to have his pastor present and lay hands and pray during his execution. During this 2025-2026 term the Supreme Court is looking at the scope of remedies for a RLUIPA violation in the case Landor v. Taylor where a Rastafarian inmate’s religious liberty was violated when prison officials cut off his dreadlocks in clear violation of RLUIPA.
As advocates of religious freedom for all people, the Seventh-day Adventist church is active in defending the religious liberty rights of those in prison who want to practice their faith. We understand that an individual’s religious liberty does not end just because an individual is incarcerated.
Jennifer Gray-Woods is the Lake Union legal counsel, as well as its Public Affairs and Religious Liberty director.
