RLUIPA upheld unanimously in Cutter v. Wilkinson

May 31, 2005

In a unanimous decision written by Justice Ginsburg, the Supreme Court today upheld Section 3 of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA"), which protects the religious exercise of prisoners.  Justice Thomas concurred in a separate opinion.

The Court squarely rejected the core argument of the court below (and of RLUIPA's detractors) that religious accommodation laws that accommodate only religion violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, because they impermissibly favor the religious over the secular.  As the Court explained, "Were the Court of Appeals' view the correct reading of our decisions, all manner of religious accommodations would fall."

"There's a strong argument to be made that the anti-accommodation reading of the Establishment Clause has been dead for a long time, but today's unanimous decision removes any lingering doubt,” said Anthony Picarello, President and General Counsel for the Becket Fund.  "Cutter is a win for religious exercise in prison, but more importantly, it is a thumping victory for religion-only accommodations nationwide.”

The Becket Fund drafted and filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in Cutter on behalf of over fifty religious and civil rights organizations, ranging from People for the American Way to the American Center for Law and Justice.  Denominational groups on the brief included Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, Sikhs, and others.

Becket Fund attorneys are the nation's leading experts in the constitutionality and application of RLUIPA.  In March 2005, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy published an article by Litigation Director Derek Gaubatz entitled, "RLUIPA at Four: Evaluating the Success and Constitutionality of RLUIPA’s Prisoner Provisions."  And in the Summer of 2001, less than a year after RLUIPA was signed into law, the George Mason Law Review published an article by Becket Fund President Anthony Picarello and Of Counsel Roman Storzer entitled, "The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000: A Constitutional Response to Unconstitutional Zoning Practices."

These and other resources are available on www.rluipa.org, a Becket Fund website dedicated to the Act.

Resources & Documents

• Supreme Court decision in Cutter v. Wilkinson (PDF, 114.72KB)

Relevant Cases

• Cutter v. Wilkinson