Prison guard can keep long hair for religious reasons, Ohio high court rules

The Associated Press

05.25.00

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — An American Indian prison guard can keep his hair long, contrary to an order by the state prisons department to cut it, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

The court ruled 6-1 that Wendell Humphrey, a corrections officer at Hocking Correctional Facility near Nelsonville, could keep his hair long in accordance with his religious beliefs.

Humphrey had argued that his long hair is a symbol of his culture and religion as a Shoshone-Bannock Indian.

"The only thing I really have to say is that I owe it all to the creator," Humphrey said yesterday. "It was just a fight I had to fight."

The state did not dispute that a central tenet of Native American spirituality is that a man's hair should not be cut unless he is in mourning, Justice Paul E. Pfeifer wrote for the majority.

"Forcing Humphrey to cut his hair would certainly infringe upon the free exercise of his religion," he wrote.

The court agreed that the state has a compelling interest in establishing a grooming policy for its guards because of the dangerous nature of a prison.

But the state didn't prove that forcing Humphrey to cut his hair was the least restrictive way of furthering that interest.

Justice Deborah Cook dissented, saying the Ohio Constitution's recognition of people's "rights of conscience" shouldn't take precedence over U.S. Supreme Court's 1990 ruling in Employment Div., v. Smith on religious beliefs. In Smith, the court concluded that the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment was not implicated by "neutral laws of general applicability," even if those laws happened to infringe upon religious beliefs or practices.

Three years ago, officials at the prison 55 miles southeast of Columbus ordered Humphrey to cut his hair or be fired.

In February 1998, Judge Thomas Gerken of Hocking County Common Pleas Court upheld Humphrey's practice of concealing his hair under a cap while working.

The 4th Ohio District Court of Appeals overruled that judgment and Humphrey appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Humphrey had argued that native people believe the creator knows people by their hair. He said that when he braids his hair, each braid is a prayer.

The state argued that the case was not about religious freedom, but rather an employer's ability to ask certain things of its employees.

The state contended that Humphrey's workplace was a dangerous environment and argued that there was a compelling interest for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to require uniform dress and appearance of its guards.