American Indian guard can keep hair long

By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBUS - 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 Wednesday.

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

Humphrey had argued that his long black 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 Wednesday. ''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 a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on religious beliefs.

That ruling held that a person's religious beliefs don't prevent a citizen from obeying a law that isn't aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious belief, Cook wrote.

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 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. It said there was a compelling interest for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to require uniform dress and appearance of its guards.