Summary of facts:  In 2014, Congress ordered the transfer of an Apache worship site in Arizona to a multinational mining corporation seeking to turn the land into a copper mine. The Apache sued, arguing that the federal government’s transfer of the land was a substantial burden on their religious exercise under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). A 3-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled against the Apache, holding that the destruction of a sacred worship site does not constitute a “substantial burden” under its interpretation of RFRA. The Ninth Circuit then agreed to rehear the case under “limited en banc review,” meaning a panel of eleven appellate court judges. That panel again ruled against the Apache, who are now asking for “full en banc review” of their case by all twenty-nine of the circuit’s judges.

RFI’s position: The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed RFRA as a robust bulwark for religious liberty. Neither the text nor the intent of RFRA support the limited en banc Ninth Circuit’s radically cabined interpretation of the statute’s “substantial burden” element. Demolishing a worship site is self-evidently a substantial burden on religious exercise. The full en banc Ninth Circuit should reverse.

Read the amicus brief here.