Amicus Curiae Brief — Daniel Grand, Petitioner v. City of University Heights, Ohio, et al.

Supreme Court briefApr 10, 2026

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No. 25-965

In the Supreme Court of the United States

DANIEL GRAND,

PETITIONER,

CITY OF UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, OHIO, et al.,

RESPONDENTS.

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

BRIEF OF THE ISLAM & RELIGIOUS

FREEDOM ACTION TEAM OF THE

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM INSTITUTE AND

THE JEWISH COALITION FOR RELIGIOUS

LIBERTY AS AMICI CURIAE SUPPORTING

PETITIONER

HOWARD SLUGH

JEWISH COALITION FOR

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

2400 Virginia Ave.

N.W. Apt. C619

Washington, D.C. 20037

SEAN T.H. DUTTON

Counsel of Record

KIENBAUM HARDY

VIVIANO PELTON &

FORREST PLC

280 N. Old Woodward

Ave., Suite 400

Birmingham, MI 48009

(248) 645-0000

sdutton@khvpf.com

Attorneys for Amici Curiae IRF & JCRL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ...................................... ii

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE ................................1

INTRODUCTION & SUMMARY

OF ARGUMENT .........................................................3

ARGUMENT ...............................................................5

I. This Court’s Review Is Necessary To Protect

The Ability Of Citizens—Particularly Those

Who Practice Minority Religions—To

Engage In The Free Exercise Of Religion On

Their Property. ........................................... 5

A. Government Entities Use Purportedly

Neutral Zoning Laws Inordinately

Against Minority Religious Groups, Like

Muslims and Jews................................. 6

B. Such Discrimination Routinely Occurs

Without An Obvious Final Decision By

Governmental Decisionmakers, Which

Simply Delay Their Determinations

Instead Of Issuing A Formal Denial. ... 8

II. The Sixth Circuit Erred In Concluding That

Petitioner’s RLUIPA Claim Was Unripe. 13

CONCLUSION ..........................................................18

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Abbott Labs. v. Gardner,

387 U.S. 136 (1967)............................................. 13

Bartenwerfer v. Buckley,

598 U.S. 69 (2023)............................................... 17

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.,

573 U.S. 682 (2014)............................................. 16

Califano v. Sanders,

430 U.S. 99 (1977)............................................... 13

Elrod v. Burns,

427 U.S. 347 (1976)............................................. 14

Emp. Div., Dep’t of Hum. Res. of

Oregon v. Smith,

494 U.S. 872 (1990)............................................... 6

Garden State Islamic Center v. City

of Vineland,

358 F. Supp. 3d 377 (D.N.J. 2018) ........................ 9

Horne v. Dep’t of Agric.,

569 U.S. 513 (2013)............................................. 15

Knick v. Twp. of Scott, Pa.,

588 U.S. 180 (2019)............................................. 14

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife,

504 U.S. 555 (1992)............................................. 14

iii

Nat’l Park Hospitality Ass’n v.

Dep’t of Interior,

538 U.S. 803 (2003)............................................. 13

Pakdel v. City & Cnty. of San

Francisco, California,

594 U.S. 474 (2021) (per curiam) ....................... 15

Roman Cath. Diocese of Brooklyn

v. Cuomo,

592 U.S. 14 (2020) (per curiam) ......................... 14

Sherman v. Town of Chester,

752 F.3d 554 (2d Cir. 2014) .................................. 9

Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins,

578 U.S. 330 (2016)............................................. 14

Trump v. New York,

592 U.S. 125 (2020)............................................. 14

United States v. County of Culpeper,

Virginia,

245 F. Supp. 3d 758 (W.D. Va. 2017) .............. 9, 10

Williamson Cty. Reg’l Plan. Comm’n

v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City,

473 U.S. 172 (1985)..............................4, 14, 15, 17

Statutes & Rules

42 U.S.C. § 2000cc .............................................. 16, 17

42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-2 ................................................. 16

42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-3 ................................................. 16

42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5 ................................................. 16

Sup. Ct. R. 10 ........................................................... 13

Other Authorities

Amen Galinato, ‘We Never Gave Up

Hope.’ Bethpage Muslims Settle

Mosque Expansion Lawsuit, WSHU

(Dec. 17, 2025) ............................................... 10, 11

Douglas Laycock & Luke W. Goodrich,

RLUIPA: Necessary, Modest and

Under-Enforced, 39 Fordham Urb.

L.J. 1021 (2012) .................................................... 7

Drew Penner, Jewish Residents Rally

with Muslim Community for Los

Gatos Mosque Permit Modification,

Los Gatan (Apr. 1, 2026) ..................................... 11

H.R. Rep. No. 106-219 (1999) .................................... 7

Sunayana Prabhu, Holmdel Synagogue

Wins Planning Approval Amid

Community Concerns, The Two

River Times (Sept. 26, 2025) ............................... 12

U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Report on the

Twentieth Anniversary of the

Religious Land Use and

Institutionalized Persons Act

(Sept. 22, 2020) ..................................................... 7

U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Update on the

Justice Department’s Enforcement

of the Religious Land Use and

Institutionalized Persons Act:

2010–2016 (July 2016) .......................................... 6

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE 1

The Religious Freedom Institute’s Islam and

Religious Freedom Action Team (“IRF”) represents

and amplifies Muslim voices on topics related to

religious freedom, seeks a deeper understanding of

the support for religious freedom from inside the

teachings of Islam, and protects the religious freedom

of Muslims across the country. IRF engages in

research, education, and advocacy on core issues like

freedom of religion, and the freedom to live out one’s

faith, particularly when, as here, those core natural

rights are threatened by government officials. IRF

explores and supports religious freedom by

translating resources by Muslims about religious

freedom, fostering inclusion of Muslims in religious

freedom work both in places where Muslims are a

majority and where they are a minority, and

partnering with the Institute’s other teams in

advocacy.

The Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty

(“JCRL”) is an association of American Jews

concerned with the current state of religious-liberty

jurisprudence. It aims to protect the ability of all

Americans to freely practice their faith and foster

1 No counsel for any party authored this brief in whole or in

part. No person or entity other than Amici and their counsel

made a monetary contribution intended to fund the preparation

or submission of this brief. Pursuant to Rule 37.2, Amici

provided timely notice of this brief to all parties.

cooperation between Jews and other faith

communities in pursuing that mission. Recognizing

religious individuals’ and organizations’ ability to

vindicate the right to religious autonomy serves to

protect the religious liberty and freedoms of all

Americans, including religious minorities.

Given these longstanding institutional interests,

IRF and JCRL have a significant stake in the

question presented here. Amici are concerned that,

were this Court to permit the rule of the U.S. Court of

Appeals for the Sixth Circuit below to stand, plaintiffs

who allege violations of their constitutional rights to

free exercise of religion will be blocked from

vindicating those rights in federal court, as local

government zoning officials can simply delay any

consideration of a religiously based zoning request,

depriving the religious adherent of its fundamental

rights and statutory protections under the Religious

Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act

(“RLUIPA”).

INTRODUCTION & SUMMARY

OF ARGUMENT

This Petition presents a simple but consequential

question: may government officials circumvent

RLUIPA by burdening religious exercise through

denial by delay—via serial continuances, shifting

demands, and procedural limbo—while insisting that

nothing is ripe for judicial review because they have

not yet said “no” in a final vote? The decision below

effectively blesses that Kafkaesque regime, allowing

officials to block religious use of property and then

wield the absence of a formal denial to keep federal

courts from hearing the merits at all. That rule is

especially dangerous for Muslims, Jews, and other

minority faith communities, which have long faced

disproportionate resistance in zoning processes that

appear neutral on paper but operate as instruments

of exclusion in practice. In that setting, delay

amounts to more than mere administrative

inconvenience. It means missed worship, mounting

costs, and the practical denial of the right to use one’s

own property for religious exercise.

This Court’s review is warranted because the rule

adopted by the Sixth Circuit below threatens religious

exercise in one of the core contexts that prompted

RLUIPA’s

enactment.

Minority

religious

communities, including Muslims and Jews,

disproportionately encounter implicit discrimination

in land-use proceedings, and that discrimination

often does not take the form of a clean denial. It

appears instead as repeated continuances, claims of

incompleteness, shifting requirements, and other

delay tactics that prevent religious use of property

while preserving the government’s argument that no

final decision has yet been made. A ripeness rule that

treats such burdens as unreviewable invites evasion

and leaves serious interference with religious exercise

without an effective remedy.

The Sixth Circuit erred by importing this Court’s

finality requirement from Williamson County

Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of

Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985), into RLUIPA. That

requirement arose from the special logic of Fifth

Amendment takings claims, where a court cannot

assess the alleged injury without a final and definitive

land-use position. RLUIPA is different by text,

structure, and purpose. Congress created a cause of

action focused on whether government has imposed a

substantial burden on religious exercise and directed

courts to construe the statute broadly in favor of

protecting that exercise. Nothing in RLUIPA

supports a rigid final-decision rule, much less one

that allows officials to defeat judicial review by

stalling. At minimum, where delay and procedural

obstruction themselves impose the burden, those

actions are sufficiently final to permit suit.

ARGUMENT

I. This Court’s Review Is Necessary To Protect

The Ability Of Citizens—Particularly Those

Who

Practice

Minority

Religions—To

Engage In The Free Exercise Of Religion On

Their Property.

Permitting the Sixth Circuit’s application of the

more-onerous test for ripeness this Court adopted in

Williamson County to RLUIPA claims will have a

significant adverse effect on Amici, their members,

and their institutional interests. Beyond merely

being, with respect, an incorrect application of the

law, the decision below will effectively require untold

numbers of Americans, like Petitioner, Amici, and

Amici’s members, to sit and wait while their

fundamental right to exercise their religion on their

own property withers on the vine. As history has

shown, these harms will fall excessively on

practitioners

minority

religions,

who

overwhelmingly face the biases of their neighbors for

practicing different faiths. As a general rule, America

has been a welcoming home to religious minorities,

while establishing a model of religious pluralism that

deserves celebration. However, there have been

unfortunate exceptions, including in the land use

context. And the government action that effectively

discriminates against these minority religious

practices can be done without overt determinations

that would be necessary to provide the sort of

administrative finality Williamson County requires.

In fact, in a country where religious pluralism is the

dominant model, covert discrimination is a bigger

threat than overt bigotry. “Indeed, few States would

be so naive as to enact a law directly prohibiting or

burdening a religious practice as such.” Emp. Div.,

Dep’t of Hum. Res. of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872,

894 (1990) (O’Connor J., concurring in the judgment).

A. Government Entities Use Purportedly

Neutral

Zoning

Laws

Inordinately

Against Minority Religious Groups, Like

Muslims and Jews.

It has long been understood that the protection

RLUIPA provides is inordinately necessary to protect

minority religious adherents. As the Department of

Justice explained when reviewing its RLUIPA

enforcement data, its “experience in its investigations

since 2010 has reinforced the conclusion that minority

groups have faced a disproportionate level of

discrimination in zoning matters.” U.S. Dep’t of

Justice, Update on the Justice Department’s

Enforcement of the Religious Land Use and

Institutionalized Persons Act: 2010–2016, 4 (July

2016). 2 Despite Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and

Hindus comprising only 4.2% of the U.S. population

in 2015, they nevertheless represented over 55% of

the DOJ’s RLUIPA investigations between 2010 and

2016 under RLUIPA. Id. at 5–6. Indeed, “religious

groups often encounter[ ] overt and subtle forms of

2 Available at https://www.justice.gov/crt/file/877931/dl.

discrimination when seeking zoning approval for

places of worship—most often impacting minority

faiths and newer, smaller, or unfamiliar

denominations.” U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Report on the

Twentieth Anniversary of the Religious Land Use and

Institutionalized Persons Act 4 (Sept. 22, 2020). 3

The harms against practicers of minority religions

are often coupled with other forms of bigotry, and

likely underreported. As the DOJ has explained in

analyzing data on RLUIPA enforcement actions, this

outsized mistreatment of minority faiths is

sometimes “coupled with racial and ethnic

discrimination,” all of which falls on top of the fact

that religious institutions, in general, “were often

treated worse in zoning decisions than comparable

secular institutions,” creating a snowball effect on

these minority religions. Id. (quoting H.R. Rep. No.

106-219, at 24 (1999)). And these numbers likely do

not even show the whole picture. Some analyses of

RLUIPA’s efficacy have concluded that this important

statutory regime “has, if anything, been under

enforced,” Douglas Laycock & Luke W. Goodrich,

RLUIPA: Necessary, Modest and Under-Enforced, 39

Fordham Urb. L.J. 1021, 1048 (2012), meaning it is

likely that there are untold cases of religious zoning

3 Available at https://www.justice.gov/d9/press-releases/atta

chments/2020/09/22/report_on_the_twentieth_anniversary_of_r

luipa_-_september_22_2020_0.pdf.

discrimination against minority religions that are

simply never brought to court.

B. Such Discrimination Routinely Occurs

Without An Obvious Final Decision By

Governmental Decisionmakers, Which

Simply Delay Their Determinations

Instead Of Issuing A Formal Denial.

As the Petition well explains, although there is a

Circuit split regarding the application of Williamson

County in the RLUIPA context, there is no dearth of

caselaw showing how local government zoning

officials can (and will likely continue to) delay and

otherwise chill First-Amendment- and RLUIPAprotected activity through their regulatory oversight

actions, without ever outright denying a land use

request. Pet.14–16, 29.

Unfortunately, as shown in the facts of this very

case, government officials can impose their unlawful

religious-land-use discrimination without having to

announce themselves in a clean, appealable denial

vote that would provide the necessary finality

Williamson County requires. Instead, governmental

entities regularly burden religious minorities through

delay-as-denial tactics such as repeated continuances,

agenda pulls, “incomplete” loops, escalating review

costs, midstream rule changes, and last-step

obstruction that prevents worship or religious service

while preserving a litigation posture that no final

decision exists. The danger of rigid finality rules in

this context is obvious. If a local government can stall

and then argue that the stalled matter is unripe,

discrimination can become practically unreviewable.

Courts have recognized this concern in closely

analogous settings. For example, in Sherman v. Town

of Chester, 752 F.3d 554 (2d Cir. 2014), the Second

Circuit confronted a decade-long campaign of landuse obstruction, and held it would be “perverse” to let

the government use “extreme delay” to escape

accountability, explaining that “a final decision is not

necessary” where the obstruction itself is the

challenged governmental action. Id. at 563–69.

And in the RLUIPA context, courts likewise have

refused to treat continued processing as a talisman

against review when the claim is that the process is

being used pretextually to frustrate religious exercise.

Unfortunately, as the following cases demonstrate,

these situations have often involved the targeting of

religious minorities. RLUIPA protected the religious

minorities from discrimination in these cases, but it

would not do so under the rule adopted in the decision

below. For example, the Court in Garden State Islamic

Center v. City of Vineland, 358 F. Supp. 3d 377 (D.N.J.

2018), held that where “the issuance of a final decision

[is] held in abeyance,” that is “the very essence of the

claim” that the process was invoked to frustrate the

congregation’s existence and substantially burdened

the Islamic Center’s religious exercise. Id. at 385–87.

And in United States v. County of Culpeper, Virginia,

245 F. Supp. 3d 758 (W.D. Va. 2017), although the

town board refused to issue a final decision on the

Islamic Center of Culpeper’s permit application

because that application was allegedly “insufficient,”

as well as claiming the application’s deficiencies

rendered it necessary for the ICC “to resubmit an

application (or explore some other method) rather than

sue,” the district court found that the issue was ripe for

adjudication because these delay tactics “were pretexts

for religious discrimination.” Id. at 765.

Even beyond the caselaw, examples of delay-asdenial in these contexts abound. Following the

successful litigation of a mosque expansion on Long

Island—after seven years of litigation—a local news

outlet researched the widespread difficulties Muslim

communities faced in building mosques near their

homes. In researching “national mosque disputes”

from 2005–2025, the reporters uncovered more than 70

major disputes, 52 of which resulted in “municipal

pushback through the usage of zoning laws” against

these Muslim communities. Amen Galinato, ‘We Never

Gave Up Hope.’ Bethpage Muslims Settle Mosque

Expansion Lawsuit, WSHU (Dec. 17, 2025). 4 As this

article explained, “zoning laws have been increasingly

employed to discriminate against religious groups, but

especially toward Muslim Americans,” routinely

through imposition of “administrative roadblocks in

4 Available at https://www.wshu.org/long-island-news/2025-

12-17/bethpage-muslims-mosque-expansion-lawsuit.

the approval process,” such as a “years-long regulatory

review.” Id.

In another example, the West Valley Muslim

Association of Los Gatos, California, was forced to seek

special permit changes just to hold pre-dawn, lateevening, and Ramadan prayers, with the City’s

administrative proceedings placing a significant

burden on the local Muslim community, particularly

because the hearing itself happened only after

Ramadan had already ended. Drew Penner, Jewish

Residents Rally with Muslim Community for Los Gatos

Mosque Permit Modification, Los Gatan (Apr. 1,

2026). 5 Despite the fact that the WVMA received crossdenominational support from local Jewish leaders, the

Los Gatos Planning Commission voted to end meeting

and continue public comment on another date, further

delaying the ability of the WVMA to hold its crucial

religious services. Id.

Finally, a local New Jersey planning board recently

delayed its decision to approve a site plan for a

synagogue and Rabbi’s residence for months. In

Holmdel, New Jersey, the Chabad Jewish Center of

BCC, Inc., sought a site plan approval to develop a

single-story religious center with numerous amenities

for the local Jewish community, including “a 300-seat

sanctuary, a multipurpose room for celebrations and

holiday events, a youth lounge, a Hebrew school, a

Available at https://losgatan.com/jewish-residents-rallywith-muslim-community-for-los-gatos-mosque-permit/.

library and space for community outreach programs.”

Sunayana Prabhu, Holmdel Synagogue Wins Planning

Approval Amid Community Concerns, The Two River

Times (Sept. 26, 2025). 6 Although the Chabad Jewish

Center first appeared for a hearing before the planning

board in December 2024, the board permitted

supposed concerns by residents to create “months of

debate and pushback” requiring numerous meetings,

delaying any decision by the board until September of

2025. Id. Here, too, local government officials were able

to significantly delay the applicants’ exercise of their

religious liberty, without any formal administrative

denial.

While each of these examples show significant

occurrences of administrative delays and run-arounds

that impose substantial hardships on religious

exercise, RLUIPA and the Constitution do not require

courts to delay protecting religious exercise due to a

form-over-function analysis which ignores the very

real burdens imposed by bad-faith delay. Absent the

protection of RLUIPA, religious minorities have no

guarantee that such delays will ever come to an end.

They may give up and decide to move to a different

community rather than engaging in a Sisyphean

process that seems aimed at excluding them. Where

delay or claims of administrative incompleteness are

the mechanism of exclusion, those very contentions

6 Available at https://tworivertimes.com/holmdel-synagogue-

wins-planning-approval-amid-community-concerns/.

can be the actionable restraint under RLUIPA. See

infra Part II.

II. The Sixth Circuit Erred In Concluding That

Petitioner’s RLUIPA Claim Was Unripe.

Given all of the above, as well as the split of

authority amongst the Circuits on this issue, the

Question Presented is well poised for this Court’s

consideration. See Sup. Ct. R. 10(a). But, moreover,

the decision below amounts to an incorrect

application of law that conflicts with this Court’s

precedent, further warranting certiorari. Sup. Ct.

R. 10(c).

A.1. “Ripeness is a justiciability doctrine designed

‘to prevent the courts, through avoidance of

premature adjudication, from entangling themselves

in abstract disagreements over administrative

policies.’” Nat’l Park Hospitality Ass’n v. Dep’t of

Interior, 538 U.S. 803, 807 (2003) (quoting Abbott

Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148 (1967), abrogated

on other grounds by Califano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99

(1977)). When considered in the context of

government decisionmaking, ripeness aims “to

protect the agencies from judicial interference until

an administrative decision has been formalized and

its effects felt in a concrete way by the challenging

parties.” Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 148–49. In the

mine run of cases, ripeness is determined by the

resolution of two generally straightforward inquiries:

(1) whether the dispute presents a claim that is fit to

be “resolved through the judicial process” and

(2) whether the court’s withholding of an adjudication

of the issues would create a hardship or “concrete

harm” to the parties. Trump v. New York, 592 U.S.

125, 131, 133–34 (2020).

And so long as a plaintiff has suffered an actual

injury or harm, “Congress has the power to define

injuries and articulate chains of causation that will

give rise to a case or controversy where none existed

before.” Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 341

(2016) (quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504

U.S. 555, 580 (1992) (Kennedy, J., concurring)). As

this Court has well-noted, “[t]he loss of First

Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of

time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”

Roman Cath. Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 592 U.S.

14, 19 (2020) (per curiam) (quoting Elrod v. Burns,

427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976) (plurality opinion)).

Alternatively, this Court has applied a more

specific and strenuous ripeness test in cases involving

a regulatory taking of property under the Fifth

Amendment. In such cases, the Court has held that

claims “regarding the application of [a] zoning

ordinance . . . to [a plaintiff’s] property” are “not ripe”

until the plaintiff “obtain[s] a final decision” from the

regulatory entity.” Williamson Cty., 473 U.S. at 186,

overruled in part on other grounds by Knick v. Twp. of

Scott, Pa., 588 U.S. 180, 189 (2019). In such cases,

ripeness occurs only once the government entity

“charged with implementing the regulations,” has

“reached a final decision regarding the application of

the regulations to the property at issue.” Id. at 186–

87. This is because a Fifth Amendment takings claim

requires proof “that the Government has both taken

property and denied just compensation.” Horne v.

Dep’t of Agric., 569 U.S. 513, 525–26 (2013). As this

Court has explained, requiring such finality “is

compelled by the very nature of the inquiry required

by the Just Compensation Clause,” because the

unique factors significant to that inquiry “cannot be

evaluated until the administrative agency has arrived

at a final, definitive position regarding how it will

apply the regulations at issue to the particular land

in question.” Williamson Cty., 473 U.S. at 190–91.

And even when the Williamson County finality

requirement applies, the “rationales for the finality

requirement underscore that nothing more than de

facto finality is necessary,” a “relatively modest”

showing that merely “ensures that a plaintiff has

actually ‘been injured by the Government’s action’

and is not prematurely suing over a hypothetical

harm.” Pakdel v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco,

California, 594 U.S. 474, 478–79 (2021) (per curiam)

(quoting Horne, 569 U.S. at 525).

2. Under RLUIPA, government entities are

prohibited from “impos[ing] or implement[ing] a land

use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial

burden on the religious exercise of a person, including

a religious assembly or institution, unless the

government demonstrates that imposition of the

burden on that person, assembly, or institution—

(A) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental

interest; and (B) is the least restrictive means of

furthering that compelling governmental interest.” 42

U.S.C. § 2000cc(a)(1) (formatting altered). RLUIPA

defines “religious exercise” as “any exercise of

religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a

system of religious belief.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(7)(A).

Congress has made clear its intent to open the

courthouse doors for these sorts of claims. Congress

explicitly intended RLUIPA to “be construed in favor

of a broad protection of religious exercise, to the

maximum extent permitted by the terms of this

chapter and the Constitution.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc3(g); see also Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573

U.S. 682, 714 (2014). And RLUIPA further advised

how courts should consider justiciability arguments

regarding any claims or defenses raised under

RLUIPA—“[s]tanding to assert a claim or defense

under this section shall be governed by the general

rules of standing under article III of the

Constitution,” while also explaining that RLUIPA

claims adjudicated in non-federal forums “shall not be

entitled to full faith and credit in a Federal court

unless the claimant had a full and fair adjudication of

that claim in the non-Federal forum.” 42 U.S.C.

§ 2000cc-2(a), (c). Thus, at every available turn,

Congress spelled out its intent to make RLUIPA

claims available to those whose religious exercise was

substantially burdened by a government decision

relating to land use.

B. Here, the Sixth Circuit and several of its sister

Circuits have erred in applying Williamson County’s

inapposite ripeness/finality requirement to claims

brought under RLUIPA.

RLUIPA claims simply do not uniformly demand

final administrative decisions before a judicial

remedy may be sought. Instead, Congress chose a

different path—an RLUIPA plaintiff must show “a

substantial burden on the religious exercise of a

person,” that is not saved by the government’s

showing of a “compelling governmental interest” that

“is the least restrictive means of furthering that

compelling governmental interest.” 42 U.S.C.

§ 2000cc(a)(1). Congress’ specific choice to require

only a substantial burden on religious exercise is

simply not compatible with Williamson County’s

significant administrative finality requirements.

Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, 598 U.S. 69, 80 (2023) (“This

Court generally assumes that, when Congress enacts

statutes, it is aware of this Court’s relevant

precedents.” (citation omitted)). Coupled with the fact

that Williamson County only required administrative

finality because of “the very nature of the inquiry

required by the Just Compensation Clause,” 473 U.S.

at 190–91, the finality requirement is simply a bad fit

for RLUIPA’s protective regime.

By adding this atextual judicial gloss on RLUIPA,

the lower courts have imposed unnecessary and

legally unsupported hurdles to the vindication of Free

Exercise rights that Congress intended when it

enacted this statutory regime. For these reasons, the

Court should grant the petition to consider and

reverse the Sixth Circuit’s ripeness decision.

CONCLUSION

The Court should grant the petition for a writ of

certiorari.

Respectfully submitted,