This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
On 23 June 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety, holding by a 6 to 3 vote that Damon Landor, a Rastafarian who had kept his hair uncut for nearly two decades under a Nazarite vow, could not sue individual Louisiana prison officials for damages.
Guards had handcuffed Landor and shaved his head with about three weeks left on his sentence, even though he had handed them a copy of a federal appeals court decision that had already held the practice unlawful, a fact the case record placed before the Court without dispute.
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch held that a state employee may not be held personally liable under a Spending Clause statute such as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, unless that employee has voluntarily and knowingly agreed to answer private lawsuits under it, a standard the officials who shaved Landor's head did not meet.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, disagreeing with the majority's reading of who a Spending Clause statute can be enforced against.
What the Landor decision changed for Rastafari practice in custody was closing off individual damages suits against the prison officials who carry out a violation, even where a controlling appeals court decision had already told those officials the practice being enforced was unlawful.