Huy, NCAI, USET, NARF File U.S. Supreme Court Amicus Brief

Yesterday, Huy joined with the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), United South and Eastern Tribes (USET), and Native American Rights Fund (NARF) to submit an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the federally protected right of incarcerated Indigenous people to unshorn hair. 

That coalition submitted the “friend of the court” brief in Landor v. Louisiana, an appeal brought by a Rastafarian prisoner whose dreadlocks were forcibly cut by state prison officials.  His appeal concerns the right to sue state prison officials in their individual capacities for money damages as a result of the violation of his religious freedoms.

The amicus brief explains the history of imprisonment and forcible hair cutting Indigenous people have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of federal and state governmental actors; and the need for Indigenous people to sue state actors for money damages to remedy religious freedoms violations. 

This was the second U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief Huy filed in collaboration with NCAI and NARF. In 2014, those three organizations filed a brief in Holt v. Hobbs, which held that an Arkansas grooming policy that prohibited an incarcerated Muslim man from growing a short beard violated his religious freedoms under federal law.