A peaceful protest for justice has spiraled into a deeply personal battle over religious freedom for Layla Soliz, a Muslim woman now at the center of a federal lawsuit accusing the Knox County Sheriff’s Office of violating her civil rights during her arrest at a pro-Palestinian protest in Knoxville. What began as a stand for justice on the University of Tennessee’s campus has evolved into a legal fight against what she describes as a blatant violation of her faith and fundamental rights.
Soliz was forced to remove her hijab for a booking photo after being arrested for criminal trespassing, along with 10 others, at a pro-Palestinian demonstration on the University of Tennessee campus on May 15.
Soliz’s booking photo, taken without her hijab, was published online despite deputies promising it would remain private.
“Unless individuals are willing to speak out against the treatment by the Knox County Sheriff’s Office, these injustices will continue to happen. To address my own frustration over the violation of my religious rights and to prevent this from happening to anyone else, I felt it was my duty to take this action,” Soliz told the Tennessee Lookout in a telephone interview.
Her story is part of a growing trend in the U.S. where Muslim women are forced to remove their religious head coverings while in police custody, a controversy tied to the broader debate over religious liberty.
Soliz is being represented by civil rights attorney Daniel Horwitz and is seeking $250,000 in damages for the emotional distress caused by the removal of her hijab and the public release of her uncovered mugshot. She is also demanding the sheriff’s office delete the photo from all databases and implement permanent changes to its booking procedures to prevent further violations.
Sheriff’s deputies violated policy
The Knox County Sheriff’s Office violated its own policies when deputies forced Soliz to remove her hijab during the booking process. According to the sheriff’s office guidelines, detainees should be allowed to retain religious head coverings unless there is a clear security threat.
The department’s policy, titled “Religious Head Coverings,” instructs jailers to respect “the dignity and religious rights of arrestees who wear religious head coverings.” It directs staff to take photographs of the person both with and without the head covering but to release only the photograph with the head covering, and to use that photo for inmate identification.
Pro-Palestinian campus protests sparked arrest
Soliz, a 2012 University of Tennessee graduate and staff member at Tayseer Seminary, grew up in Knoxville and had been on campus for several days before her arrest, working alongside students and organizers.
On May 15, she, her husband, and a group of 10 others, including university students, were arrested during a pro-Palestinian rally at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, held in observance of Nakba Day.
The Palestinian commemoration marks the date of the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the displacement of Palestinians before and after Israel’s establishment on May 14, 1948. The word “Nakba” means “catastrophe” in Arabic and refers to the loss of Palestinian homes, land and livelihoods as a result of the war.
A statewide law passed in 2022, a statute meant to prohibit unauthorized encampments on public property, has impacted protests on campuses and throughout Tennessee, hindering demonstrators at the University of Tennessee.
University officials allowed a section of campus for pro-Palestinian demonstrators to gather from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., aligning with the existing timeframe for gatherings on state property before Tennessee’s overnight camping ban took effect. Soliz and other demonstrators were still arrested over an hour before the 10 p.m. deadline after subsequent warnings by university officials to leave the area, according to university leaders.
“The most frustrating part of this was that our freedom of speech was infringed upon that night when we were arrested. We were peaceful protesters. We were there to call for the end of a genocide. We were calling for humanity, and an end to killing and violence,” Soliz said.
She was taken to the Knox County Detention Facility for several hours in a dark van, her hands bound by zip ties. Once she arrived she was then photographed both with and without the hijab – and both photos were uploaded into the jail system database.
The lawsuit states that an intake officer assured her that the mugshot without her headscarf would remain private, but a sergeant later uploaded the photo to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office website.
“They told me that the photos would only be used for internal purposes and that no male officers would see it,” she said.
After the photo was uploaded to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office website it was sent to a third-party mugshot database, where it quickly was viewed by hundreds of people, the lawsuit alleges.
In Islamic tradition, women wear the hijab in public to show modesty and their religious commitment. The removal of the hijab in the presence of men who are not family members is considered a violation of religious beliefs.
“Ths hijab is part of my identity. Having to not only remove it, but then knowing that my photo was shared for everyone to see only added to the humiliation I felt and nobody should have to go through that,” Soliz said.
The lawsuit also argues that the actions of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office violated several legal protections designed to safeguard religious freedom. In addition to the First Amendment, which protects individuals’ rights to practice their religion without government interference, the complaint cites the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). This federal law prohibits government institutions, including jails and prisons, from imposing undue burdens on the religious practices of incarcerated individuals.
Religious headwear violations persist across the U.S
Soliz’s lawsuit is not an isolated case. In recent years, Muslim women across the United States have taken legal action after being forced to remove religious head coverings while in police custody.
Sophia Johnston, a Muslim woman in Tennessee, won a settlement after she sued Rutherford County for a similar incident. Rutherford County agreed to a $100,000 settlement and to revise its booking procedures so they respect the religious practices of those in custody.
Police departments in major cities like New York and Long Beach, California, have also faced lawsuits over the treatment of Muslim women during arrests. In many of the cases, the courts have sided with the plaintiffs, ruling that the forced removal of religious head coverings violates constitutional protections and civil rights laws. Several departments have updated their policies to allow religious head coverings to be worn during booking photos, as long as their face remains visible for identification purposes.
For Soliz, she hopes the lawsuits filed by other islamic women will set a precedent.
“We have to challenge every single infringement on our rights, small or large, and every moment that these attacks happen. This is all very connected to what we see happening in Palestine. The entire reason we were there to begin with during our arrests is to call for an end to genocide. And these systems of oppression are very closely connected.”
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The article in this post was originally published on Tennessee Lookout and parts of it are included here under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0
