Holt v. Hobbs and RLUIPA

Very nice article on the significance of the Court's recent unanimous decision at the desert News.

Link

Some excerpts:

The Holt decision is the first time the Supreme Court has ever given substantive meaning to RLUIPA’s protections for religious freedom. In Holt, the court repeatedly emphasized how vast those protections are — “very broad,” “expansive,” “capacious” and “substantial.”
In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the court found that Arkansas’ policy banning beards substantially burdened the inmate’s religious exercise and lacked the high degree of justification required for such a burden. It forced the inmate into an unjust corner — either engage in activity that seriously violates his religious belief or face disciplinary action. The court went further, saying it doesn’t matter that officials permit the prisoner to exercise other aspects of his religion, like having a prayer rug or observing religious holidays. The court said that governments can’t force religious individuals to trade one religious practice for another.
This reasoning shifted the burden to Arkansas to prove both that a “compelling government interest” justified the policy and that the state had used means that were the “least restrictive” to the religious exercise. On whether the interest was compelling, the court held that Arkansas had not proven that its policy interests — for example, preventing the flow of contraband — were advanced by the beard ban. Because Arkansas doesn’t require inmates to shave or crew-cut the hair on top of their heads, it’s hard to see why (or even how) an inmate would hide contraband in a short beard rather than in longer hair on top.
Finally, the court held that Arkansas had not proven its policy was the least restrictive means of accomplishing its objectives, especially when over 40 other state and federal prison systems permit similar beards. Arkansas didn’t show why it can search prisoner’s hair, clothes and quarter-inch medical beards, but not half-inch religious beards....

So if you don’t live in Arkansas, you don’t wear a beard, and you’re not a prisoner, why does the Holt decision matter to you? If you care about religious freedom, Holt will help those defending it in the courts in at least three ways.
First, the Holt decision will help religious prisoners in other RLUIPA cases, such as Jewish prisoners seeking kosher diets. Second, the Holt decision will help religious plaintiffs in land-use cases, making it harder for local governments to treat poorly zoning requests from churches, synagogues and mosques. Third, the Holt decision will help RFRA plaintiffs because the same favorable legal standard (high justification for government burdens on religion) in RLUIPA also applies to RFRA. The Becket Fund is pursuing several RFRA cases, including defending a Native American church barred by discriminatory Interior Department rules from using sacred eagle feathers in its religious ceremonies. Others involve many nonprofit religious organizations opposing the HHS contraception mandate in cases expected soon to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Holt decision is a solid victory for a prisoner who sought to wear a beard in accord with his Muslim faith. But it’s an even more important victory for religious freedom generally, because it shows that the U.S. Supreme Court’s commitment to religious freedom for Americans of all faiths endures.