Opinion: Muslim Inmates Deserve the Same Legal Rights as the Jan. 6th Insurrectionists

WHEN THOUSANDS OF DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTERS STORMED THE U.S. CAPITOL Building on January 6th, many observers noted the obvious: thousands of Black Lives Matter demonstrators would have been treated very differently if they had surrounded and attacked the Capitol. In fact, they would have probably never reached the building, much less the floor of the United States Senate.

Although that double-standard has been discussed at length since the insurrection, one issue seldom discussed is the disparate treatment that at least one rioter has received in detention over the past five months.

After law enforcement arrested Capitol rioter Jake Chansley back in January, the so-called “QANon Shaman” famously asked the federal prison detaining him to provide organic food in accordance with his religious beliefs.

As the the government often does with Muslim inmates who request halal food, Justice Department lawyers first disputed the religious basis of Chansley’s request, then questioned the sincerity of his religious beliefs, and finally argued that the accommodation would be unduly burdensome. This is the usual course of action for religious accommodation requests.

While Chansley’s lawyers fought for an organic diet, Chansley reportedly subsisted on food that he was able to purchase at the commissary and lost twenty pounds.

Twitter naturally exploded with ridicule about Chansley’s demand, but the backlash was undeserved. Despite his unacceptable behavior at the riot, Chansley’s desire to eat food in accordance with his sincerely held religious beliefs is in fact protected by the law.

The Constitution protects inmates’ right to practice their faith—even in prisons. The two main laws protecting religious exercise behind bars are the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”), which applies to state actors, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), which applies to federal actors. The laws protect inmates’ rights to be free from undue burden on their religious exercise except where that burden furthers a compelling government interest that the government cannot accomplish by less restrictive means.

In this case, providing Chansley with religiously compliant food is the right decision.The only troubling aspect of the decision is the fact that incarcerated Muslims who are denied basic religious accommodations often face a much longer battle to practice their faith behind bars.

Take, for example, Gregory Holt, a Muslim inmate who challenged a prison’s no-beard policy up to the Supreme Court and won. Holt v. Hobbs is a landmark case in this area of the law, and one that is of great significance to Muslim inmates—and really, any inmate seeking religious accommodations.

Holt was a devout Muslim inmate incarcerated in the Arkansas Department of Corrections (“ADOC”) who sought to grow a beard in accordance with his religious belief that Muslim men should maintain a beard. The ADOC, citing security concerns, had a policy that only allowed men with certain dermatological conditions to grow a beard.

The prison claimed that because it accommodated other aspects of his religious practice, it was reasonably accommodating his religion as a whole. ADOC further argued that the beard policy was necessary to uphold security and prevent inmates from smuggling contraband or escaping.

The Supreme Court rejected these arguments, holding that many other measures existed to ensure quick identification and prevent hiding contraband. In a unanimous opinion, the Court held that the policy violated RLUIPA because it substantially burdened Holt’s religion when less restrictive means existed.

Holt has paved the way for progress in this niche of the law. But it is notable that Holt had to fight all the way to the highest court in the nation to merely practice a simple tenet of his faith. And he is not an aberration—in fact, the only way that he is an aberration is that he was ultimately successful.

The United States obviously does not have an “official” religion. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Americans who practice a faith self-identify as some denomination of Christianity. For this reason, and perhaps in part due to negative sentiments or ignorance about other faiths, institutions appear to fulfill Christian inmates’ accommodation requests more readily than the requests of inmates who practice other religions.

In many ways, Jake Chansley is the perfect case study when considering religious accommodations in institutions. He is a person who committed a crime and belongs to an unfamiliar religion—not unlike many Muslim inmates.

Despite the three-week delay and significant weight loss, Chansley fared better than many other minority-faith inmates who request dietary accommodations, such as the Jewish and Muslim inmates forced to file lawsuits against the Arizona Department of Corrections to reinstate Kosher meals, and the Muslim inmates at the Wallens Ridge Regional Jail who were prohibited from fasting properly during Ramadan 2020 and 2021. And the indiginities do not end with food--in perhaps the most extreme example, the Supreme Court allowed Alabama to execute a Muslim prisoner without his imam present.

Freedom cannot exist only for those we like. Instead of ridiculing Chansley’s ultimately successful request for organic food, the public should have supported it. And lawyers who represent incarcerated Muslims seeking halal food should now demand that their clients receive, at the very least, the same level of consideration that the Qanon Shaman is receiving.

Najmu Mohseen is an attorney and an Equal Justice Works Fellow sponsored by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP at the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America.

Any opinions expressed in articles published by The Muslim Legal Journal represent only the views of each writer. Such opinions are not meant to represent the views of the writer's employer or the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML).