Alaa Massri, an 18-year-old Muslim woman, was forced to remove her hijab for a police photograph after being arrested in June of this year. Massri was participating in an organized protest at the site of two statues of Christopher Columbus and Juan Ponce de León in Miami Beach. The Miami Police Department reported that several of the demonstrators had vandalized the public property statues with spray paint and that their increasing masses began to encroach the legally protected road space. Police officers then formed a “skirmish line” in order to corral the demonstration and began arresting protesters, including Massri.
After briefly resisting arrest, Massri was taken into custody at the Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Center where corrections officials proceeded to remove her hijab and take a routine booking photograph. It should be noted as well that police photographs are publicly available for viewing on the internet and other media channels. Massri was denied the choice to keep her hair and head covered for the photo, which later resulted in the signatures of over 100,000 citizens denouncing in outrage her treatment by the corrections center. In response to the public’s claims of unconstitutional denial of religious rights and expressed condemnation of such treatment, the corrections department explained that it could “not accommodate inmates who wear head coverings for religious reasons.”
The hijab is a religious head covering worn by Muslim women as a religious obligation and representation of their connection to their faith and servitude to God. According to the holy texts of Islam, Muslim women are only meant to expose their heads and hair to certain family members and people of the faith. Therefore, the forced removal of Massri’s hijab by corrections officials is clearly a direct violation of her free religious exercise. The infringement of Massri’s religious liberty is also only made stronger by the fact that the booking photo which displays her head uncovered, in complete disagreement with her religious beliefs, remains available to be viewed by the public indefinitely. Thus, the direct burden to Massri’s free exercise of her Muslim faith is ongoing due to the actions of the Miami Police Department.
This clear restriction of free exercise suggests the question of whether or not Massri and other religious individuals ought to be granted religious exemption from the routine booking policy of the Miami Police Department.
Invoking the “Sherbert Test” that has often been used by the court in issues involving disputes over religious free exercise, the substantial burden that Massri has experienced must be justifiable with a compelling state interest in order to be considered constitutional. Presumably, the state maintains an interest in promoting the safety and protection of the community as much as possible, which would include assisting in the success of police investigations and processes by upholding booking photograph protocols. The existence alone of government police agencies reveals this state interest in safeguarding the community.
However, as noted by the chief executive officer of CAIR Florida, a civil liberties and advocacy organization, numerous other police departments in the state of Florida and elsewhere have policies that allow for religious accommodations. In 2019, for example, Minnesota Police Departments adopted a new policy for handling the bookings of Muslim women that allowed them to maintain their dress in religious attire after a similar violation of religious exercise occurred involving the hijab. The fact that a precedent has been set by other corrections departments to make religious accommodations invalidates the suggestion that forcibly removing the hijab is necessary to serve the state interest of police effectiveness in Miami.
Additionally, requiring booking photos to be absent of religious attire in no way serves the state interest of maintaining safety due to the fact that Muslim tradition dictates that women shall wear the hijab at all times in public. Booking photographs are meant to provide police departments with a standard of recognition for those who have been taken into custody, however alleged Muslim criminals who would be photographed without their hijabs would not be providing a standard of recognition. Every other sighting or visual evidence of such an individual would include the hijab, thus making police references to a booking photo in which their head is uncovered useless for the purpose of identification or recognition. Therefore restricting Massri’s free exercise to wear her religious attire in no way serves the compelling state interest to assist police in protecting society. Ultimately then, this case fails the “Sherbert Test” and Massri constitutionally deserves religious exemption.
Still it could be argued that police proceedings are regulated by experts who are uniquely qualified to determine the necessary means by which the state interest of law enforcement must be achieved. Cases heard by the Supreme Court like Goldman v. Weinberger and O’Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, established that experts in the functioning of institutions like the military and state prisons “are under no constitutional mandate to abandon their considered professional judgment” (Goldman 298), and that the court must “reflect the respect and deference that the United States Constitution allows for the judgement of prison administrators” (O’Lone 5). Such institutional expertise could be awarded similarly to police departments, and thus make it inappropriate for the necessity of certain protocols to be determined outside of police officials. However, the fact that other police officials have determined the forced removal of religious attire to be unnecessary for efficient and effective booking photos and police work provides insight into police expertise that would give the court competence to require religious exemptions in accordance with the free exercise clause.
I would agree with your stance on this issue and that Massri should have been able to keep her hijab on during the booking photos. While the police are the professionals in this case like the prison officials in O'lone or Air Force in Goldman, I would argue the dissents in those cases providing sufficient arguments for greater free exercise rights. In O'lone, and I think in this case, there is evidence that the police may not be using the least restrictive means. The fact that the pictures are public and accessible by all is something that is likely unchangeable, but given the necessity of the hijab for Muslim women and recent changes in other locations, there should have been accommodations made. I agree with your argument that the purpose of the photo is for identification purposes, and making Massri remove something she would likely never been in public without appears to be useless in that sense.
ReplyDeleteI agree wi9th your analysis of the case. It is especially compelling to look at what actually serves the state interest here. Of course the state cites a need to have clear mugshot photo to easily identify the individual, but allowing Muslim women to wear a hijab, thus presenting themselves as they would look in public life, presents a better and more accurate standard of recognition. The case of the Miami Police Department is also substantially weakened given that several other police departments have made religious accommodations.
ReplyDeleteThe points that led to me to agree with your stance on this issue are the fact that number one, according to the Muslim faith, women are only allowed to remove their head covering and show their heads and hair to certain family members or religious actors. The fact that the police photograph of Massri is available to anyone in the public is a direct contradiction to her faith, and a burden on Massri's free exercise of religion. It was also compelling to me that the Miami Police Department claimed they needed a clear photograph of Massri in order to be able to more easily identify her. However other police departments, such as the Minnesota Police Department, also having experts in deciding on such an issue, allowed for religious accommodation of headwear, demonstrating that there was no clear compelling state interest in forcing the removal of Massri's hijab.
ReplyDeleteGiven, as the author said, that other police departments around the country were able to develop standards of procedure that seem to be working without requiring an infringement on religious rights is certainly an indictment of the policy and the departments actions. The point the author made about identification being more accurate when the perpetrators are likely to continue wearing their head coverings at all times is certainly interesting, and I believe it is likely true. However, the point is brought up that deference to institutional wisdom is potentially the appropriate solution. In this case I agree that when some of that institutional wisdom is no longer agreed upon in it's standards and practices, those which are successful for public safety and minimally burden constitutional rights must be followed.
ReplyDeleteJenny S.'s explanation of her thinking really resonates with mine. Initially, I was torn on where to side on this case. I was thinking of a case such as O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, where it was determined that being a prisoner of the state means that some of your religious freedoms might be compromised in order to meet the rules of the prison/jail. However, the point made by the author that mugshots are used to identify booked individuals puts me onto the side of disagreeing with women being force to take their hijabs off. As per their religion, they are always going to be seen in public wearing a hijab, so a mugshot of them with a bare head would not be helpful. Additionally, there is a difference between being booked and waiting for your sentence (such as these women), versus being a registered inmate (such as the men in the O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz case), in terms of rights compromised. For these reasons, I agree with the author that Muslim women should be allowed to keep their hijabs on for mugshots.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this stance. Wearing the hijab is a clear religious obligation and representation of their faith and servitude to God and is a clearly established religious commitment. Women are only meant to expose their heads and hair to certain family members and people of faith so this is a clear, direct infringement of her religious liberty. The state must show a compelling state interest under the “Sherbert Test” which they fail. Precedents have been set by other correction departments to make accommodations with no ill effects. Moreover, removal of the hijab does not serve a compelling state interest because booking photographs are not meant to be able to identify a criminal who is a fugitive but only to provide police departments with a standard of recognition for those who have been taken into custody which a photo with the hijab on would serve just as well. People are mostly recognized by their face and not their hair. Also, the booking photo is displayed to the public indefinitely so isn’t a minor temporary infringement of religious beliefs but close to a permanent infringement. Most importantly, every other sighting of the person would be with the hijab so the booking photo with the hijab off is useless and doesn’t serve any compelling state interest. The Supreme Court cases are not on point. They relate to military and state prisons which are where a person has already been convicted of a crime and has less liberties and if they were to escape they might want to avoid capture by taking off their hijab. So these cases provide no justification of the state’s proposed compelling interest. Booking photos in the past with hijabs on have already proven effective so the argument to remove them is undermined. Since no compelling state interest is served and there are clearly other, less intrusive, ways to achieve the intended goal Massri’s constitutional right to religious beliefs have been denied.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your points about the free exercise concern far outweighing any compelling state interest one might cite in support of forcing people to remove hijabs. The basic function of a mugshot is in order to recognize the person being charged, and the presence of someone's hair in a picture is not enough of a key identifier to outweigh the violation of her free exercise. Sophia puts this well in her comment, people are recognized mainly by their faces, not their hair. According to her faith, she is religiously required to keep her hijab on. To compel her to violate this religious duty without proper cause is a clear violation of her free exercise rights.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Emma's stance on this case. I think the key here is the fact that other police precincts have decided that there is no clear threat to allowing Muslim women to wear hijabs in booking photos. I think Emma also brought up a really interesting point when she discussed the uselessness of the photos if the hijab is removed. Not only does removing the hijab advance any State interest, but it may actually put the people at risk. Although I don't know for a fact, I personally have not heard of an individual wearing a religious head covering as a disguise of sorts to evade arrest, so I do not see any reason in this case that the removal of a hijab or any other religious head covering is necessary.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this analysis of the case. I think the most compelling fact is that the purpose of these photos is to show what the person naturally looks like. She would never be seen in public without a hijab, so it would only help to have her wearing the hijab in the photos. Further the evidence that other precincts allow for religious exceptions is also very compelling. I think this directly violates her free exercise.
ReplyDelete