Supreme Court docket Agrees to Take Case of Rastafarian Whose Locs Have been Minimize by Jail Officers

In yet one more occasion of Black hair being policed, the Supreme Court docket has agreed to listen to the case of Damon Landor, a loyal Rastafarian whose dreadlocks have been shorn by jail officers in 2020. This comes after Landor, who was serving a five-month sentence for drug-related prices at Louisiana’s Raymond Laborde Correction Middle, filed a lawsuit arguing that the incident violated his spiritual expression.

Monday, the Supreme Court docket agreed to take up the case of Landor, who filed a lawsuit primarily based on the 2020 incident when he had his dreadlocks minimize off by jail officers within the Correction Middle. There, he was serving a five-month sentence for drug-related prices, per NBC Information.

His go well with says he offered a duplicate of a courtroom ruling that allowed training Rastafarians to maintain their locs attributable to their spiritual apply of rising their hair. Nevertheless, his needs have been dismissed and he was handcuffed to a chair for a clear shave.

Landor filed his go well with upon his launch from jail, arguing that his locs ought to have been protected underneath the Spiritual Land Use and Institutionalized Individuals Act. Since then, Louisiana Legal professional Common Elizabeth Murrill said new adjustments have been made to make sure this doesn’t occur once more to a different Rastafarian. Nevertheless, the report says she challenged the potential for him with the ability to declare financial damages. Each a federal choose and appeals choose additionally dominated towards his declare for damages, per courtroom paperwork. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court docket determined to listen to the case.

Landor’s case might have main implications on how hair is protected legally for inmates. The CROWN Act, aimed towards creating statutory protections for hair primarily based on race (not faith), continues to be preventing its means by way of nationwide laws. Although Landor’s case is concentrated on defending his faith as an alternative of arguing racial discrimination, might his argument nonetheless thrust hair protections to the subsequent degree for Black inmates typically? The Root requested CROWN Act Champion and scholar Dr. Adjoa B. Asamoah to weigh in.

“The CROWN Act extends statutory safety to everybody when handed and turns into regulation. There’s not a selected setting through which the crown act you realize we’re we’re searching for to ensure individuals have their rights,” Dr. Asamoah mentioned. “From a private perspective, defending individuals’s civil rights just isn’t one thing that ought to have limitations in my opinion. It is necessary for us to at all times heart individuals’s humanity like particularly now there needs to be an elevated concentrate on acknowledging fellow people unbiased of incarceration standing, unbiased spiritual beliefs, gender – let’s deal with people like people and shield individuals civil rights. That is why we’ve them.”

Circumstances like Landor ought to garner hair protections for individuals not simply primarily based on faith, but additionally race as locs are consistantly some extent of competition for many hair discrimination instances. He plans to argue his proper to damages primarily based on the Court docket’s earlier ruling on the Spiritual Freedom Restoration Act, per the report. The Court docket will hear the case on their subsequent time period which begins in October.