Court Opinion

ID: 9499353
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:45:52.776147+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:12.084545
License: Public Domain

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part:
The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, 42 U.S.C. § 2000ce et seq. (2000), is an expression of our nation’s commitment to religious freedom. This case involves precisely the type of policy that RLUIPA seeks to foster: because Muslim inmates observing Ramadan must fast during daylight hours, prison officials have provided them with separate meals at nonstandard times. Somehow, the majority finds that even this may not have been enough. To make matters worse, it finds that this enlightened policy — one which fortunately exceeds the level of religious accommodation routinely provided in other prisons — is questionable not only under RLUIPA but on two different constitutional grounds.
With this result, the majority has turned the high congressional command of religious accommodation into an administrative nightmare for state penal institutions and district courts alike. Disregarding the deference historically accorded prison administrators, see, e.g., Beard v. Banks, 548 U.S. -, 126 S.Ct. 2572, 165 L.Ed.2d 697 (2006) (plurality); Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 125 S.Ct. 2113, 161 L.Ed.2d 1020 (2005), the majority subjects even the most progressive of policies to the most intrusive judicial supervision. Having opened the floodgates, the majority leaves us all at sea. It offers no guidance to prison administrators or district courts. It neglects to define — even in broad brush — what types of policies it would have penal institutions adopt or what kinds of practices it may or may not one day find acceptable. The only certainty that the majority guarantees is litigation over matters large and small, with federal courts thrust into a role they have sought assiduously to avoid— that of micromanaging state prisons.
I am the first to agree that plaintiff Lovelace’s religious liberties may have been impermissibly infringed. But that infringement occurred as a result of the errant and possibly malicious actions of a prison guard. The majority rightly holds that Lovelace has presented an issue of triable fact as to whether correctional officer Lester intentionally violated his religious liberty, and that RLUIPA provides a cause of action to redress this type of *205infringement. In short, Lovelace should and will have the chance to vindicate his right to religious liberty in federal court.
But the majority cannot rest content. Its endless protestations to the side, the idea that this case need only await appropriate deference to the prison’s Ramadan policy on remand completely overlooks the fact that the policy has never once been drawn into question. The majority’s assurances about its benign little remand thus presuppose the issue. Keen Mountain’s prison policy is not at issue here because it seeks to accommodate, not to burden, religious freedom. The policy is not at issue because it is keyed to what the Supreme Court has told us a policy may rightly be keyed to: the sincerity of a religious belief, rather than its truth. The policy is not at issue because it cannot be said to have caused Lovelace’s alleged injury — indeed, that injury was caused by an alleged policy violation. Finally, the prison policy makes clear on its face the safety and security concerns that somehow elude only the majority and that underlie the sole limitation placed on the policy’s accommodation of inmates who are released from their cells to participate in Ramadan: that they be sincere.
Thus the majority’s remand must be seen for precisely what it is: an invitation to finetune prison policy from the judicial perch. While a prison policy may well be called into question where it imposes a substantial burden on religious freedom, this is not such a case. It is plaintiff Lovelace who must prove under the statute that the policy, as opposed to Lester’s violation of it, somehow imposed a substantial burden upon his religious exercise, and he has not even begun to do so. To enlarge a case involving an essentially individual act into a wholesale attack upon a sound prison policy, on no fewer than three different grounds, not only makes a mountain out of a molehill but also reinforces the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished. Under the majority’s view, the most progressive and enlightened prison policy imaginable, a policy that accommodates every religion in every way, would be called into question by a single policy violation. Forcing prison officials to pay for their own progressive steps to protect religious liberty runs counter to the precise statutory and constitutional provisions that the majority purports to enforce. I therefore concur in the judgment remanding the case for further proceedings against defendant Lester, but I respectfully dissent from the majority’s RLUIPA, free exercise, and due process determinations as to the prison policy itself.
I.
A.
RLUIPA provides that “[n]o government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person residing in or confined to an institution,” unless the government demonstrates that the burden is the “least restrictive means” of furthering a “compelling governmental interest.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000ec-l(a). The majority asserts that “Lovelace’s removal from the Ramadan observance pass list at Keen Mountain qualifies as a substantial burden under RLUIPA.” Maj. Op. at 187. To the extent that the appellant’s removal was predicated on false information reported by correctional officer Lester, there indeed exists a genuine issue of fact as to whether Lester as an individual imposed a substantial burden in violation of RLUIPA. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(4).
But the majority goes further. It asserts that Keen Mountain’s Ramadan policy itself may have imposed a substantial burden on the plaintiffs religious exercise. *206How exactly this policy may have done so is something that the majority utterly neglects to explain. Missing is a crucial step, the determination of how the substantial burden suffered by Lovelace arose from the prison policy itself.
This failure by the majority is all the more evident because it is Lovelace, not the Department of Corrections, that bears the burden of proving a substantial burden. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000ce-2(b). The appellant here did not just fail to meet this burden; it is unclear that he ever alleged that the policy created a substantial burden in the first place. And, indeed, in a strict sense, I am not even convinced that Lovelace has standing to seek equitable relief. His injury is traceable not to the policy but to a prison guard who acted in total derogation of it. See, e.g., Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984); Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 41, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976) (Article III “requires that a federal court act only to redress injury that fairly can be traced to the challenged action of the defendant”). In addition, while Lovelace surely has standing for his individual claim against the possibly malicious violation of his religious liberty by correctional officer Lester, an injunction is “unavailable absent a showing of irreparable injury, a requirement that cannot be met where there is no showing of any real or immediate threat that the plaintiff will be wronged again.” City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 111, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983). In any case, the majority has taken it upon itself to create a claim for the plaintiff and then to decide it in his favor, all the while never precisely articulating the nature of the claim. All that is clear is that, according to the majority, the flagrant abuse of a prison policy by one individual somehow impugns the policy itself.
The majority defines a “substantial burden” as “one that ‘put[s] substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs.’ ” Maj. Op. at 187 (quoting Thomas v. Review Bd. of Ind. Employment Sec. Div., 450 U.S. 707, 718, 101 S.Ct. 1425, 67 L.Ed.2d 624 (1981)).1 It is impossible to imagine how the Keen Mountain Ramadan policy does anything of the kind. The Ramadan fast occupies a special place as one of the central tenets of Islam. Prescribed in the Muslim holy scripture of the Qur’an, the month-long holiday is celebrated by Muslims around the world as a time of great religious and cultural significance. Far from burdening this observance, the Keen Mountain policy seeks to accommodate it as much as possible within the prison setting. As such, the policy lies entirely at the other end of the spectrum from the types of intolerant actions that RLUIPA condemns.
But so eager is the majority to subject this policy to judicial scrutiny that it de-*207dines to discuss in any detail the substance of the policy itself. This is a shame, because the policy manifestly represents an admirable effort at religious accommodation. It recognizes and respects the importance of the Ramadan fast as one of the “essential tenet[s] of Islam.” See J.A. 30. Over a month before Ramadan was scheduled to begin, the warden issued a memorandum informing prisoners of the dates of Ramadan and describing the special arrangements that would be made for “[i]nmates wishing to participate in this event.” J.A. 27. Prisoners had over three weeks to request inclusion by notifying the Chaplain, who would “place [their] names on a Master Pass List to be utilized by Security and Food Service.” Id. During the month of the fast, Muslim prisoners were permitted to leave their cells to congregate for special meals “before sunrise and after sunset.” Id. To accommodate this religiously required eating schedule, the prison opened two dining halls — one for inmates belonging to the Nation of Islam (NOI) and another for inmates belonging to the World Community of Islam — for group meals at the nonstandard hours of 5:00 am and 6:00 pm. In addition, “[p]rayer services [were] held either before or after the breakfast meal in the dining hall.” Id. During Ramadan, the participating prisoners were “expected to adhere to the rule of the fasting period as outlined by the Nation of Islam and the World Community of Islam.” Id. Anyone observed breaking the fast by participating in regular daytime meals would lose his eligibility to participate in the program. Id.
How this policy could impose a “substantial burden” upon religious exercise is quite beyond me. Like RLUIPA itself, this policy has both the intent and effect of “facilitating] opportunities for inmates to engage in the free exercise of religion.” See Madison v. Riter, 355 F.3d 310, 317 (4th Cir.2003). Prisons should be encouraged to adopt policies that accommodate inmates’ religious beliefs, not punished for doing so.
B.
Not only is the Keen Mountain policy clearly a religious accommodation rather than a burden, but it is keyed precisely to what the Supreme Court has said such policies may take into account: the sincerity of an inmate’s religious request. The Keen Mountain policy accommodates Ramadan observance only for those inmates who actually observe the Ramadan fast. Such a sincerity requirement is in no way a substantial burden on religious exercise. To the contrary, it is the threshold inquiry of any religious accommodation claim. The Supreme Court has long recognized in the free exercise context that “while the ‘truth’ of a belief is not open to question, there remains the significant question whether it is ‘truly held.’ This is the threshold question of sincerity which must be resolved in every case.” United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 185, 85 S.Ct. 850, 13 L.Ed.2d 733 (1965)(emphasis added); see, e.g., O’Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 345, 107 S.Ct. 2400, 96 L.Ed.2d 282 (1987) (noting sincerity of respondents’ religious beliefs at outset of free exercise analysis).
The same outcome obtains under RLUI-PA. The Supreme Court has specifically instructed that, under RLUIPA, “prison officials may appropriately question whether a prisoner’s religiosity, asserted as the basis for a requested accommodation, is authentic.” Cutter, 544 U.S. at 725 n. 13, 125 S.Ct. 2113. “Prison officials ... can and do assess the sincerity of inmate’s religious beliefs in order to administer prison programs and policies ranging from requests for exceptions to grooming poli*208cies or personal property rules to approval for special meals.” Gartrell v. Ashcroft, 191 F.Supp.2d 23 (D.D.C.2002). There is simply no question that, under RLUIPA, prisons may do exactly what this policy did: ensure that religious accommodation extends only to sincere observers.
At the time that Lovelace was excluded from Ramadan, the sincerity of his beliefs was precisely the issue.2 The policy was designed to accommodate only sincere observers by the most reliable indicator possible: the would-be observers’ own religious practice. Without such an indicator, and without the ability to remove insincere participants, prisons would find themselves providing special religious meals for fasts that the inmates themselves were not observing. Taken to its extreme, such a policy would allow inmates to attend five group meals a day with impunity.
For exactly such reasons, the Eighth Circuit upheld a policy almost identical to the one at issue here. See Brown-El v. Harris, 26 F.3d 68, 69 (8th Cir.1994). The court held that excluding an inmate who broke the Ramadan fast from further participation in no way restricted his religious freedom. Id. As the court said, “Rather than burdening Ramadan worshippers, the [prison] policy allows full participation in the fast and removes from the procedures only those worshippers who choose to break the fast.” Id. at 69-70. See also Jackson v. Mann, 196 F.3d 316, 320 (2d Cir.1999) (prison officials may inquire into sincerity of inmate requesting kosher meals); McElyea v. Babbitt, 833 F.2d 196, 198 (9th Cir.1987) (prison authorities may deny insincere requests for religious meals); 28 C.F.R. § 548.20(b) (2005) (Federal Bureau of Prisons inmates may be removed from religious diet accommodation for violation of diet requirements).
Nevertheless, the majority insists that the policy imposed a substantial burden, not because Lovelace was removed from Ramadan meals, but either because he missed the group prayers that accompanied the Ramadan meals or because he was not provided with alternative services. These arguments show how far afield the majority is willing to go in order to implicate the prison policy in harm that arose, if it did so at all, from the conduct of one individual.
As to the Ramadan group prayers, the majority misrepresents the nature of the Keen Mountain policy. The prison allowed inmates to leave them cells for one observance, a group meal accompanied by prayers. The prison policy characterized this observance as one “event,” and inmates were on notice that, in order to maintain eligibility for the event, they were to observe the Ramadan fast. To suggest that Lovelace was excluded from an independent prayer observance is to mischaracterize the event as it was designed and explained to the inmates.
Moreover, the group event as designed was more than adequate religious accommodation. Other prison Ramadan policies have provided neither group meals nor group prayer. See, e.g., DeHart v. Horn, 390 F.3d 262, 265 (3d Cir.2004) (Ramadan meals served in cells); Love v. Reed, 216 F.3d 682, 691 (8th Cir.2000) (same); Benjamin v. Coughlin, 905 F.2d 571, 579 (2d Cir.1990) (same); Tisdale v. Dobbs, 807 F.2d 734, 736 (8th Cir.1986) (upholding Ramadan policy serving bologna sandwiches to inmates in cells). And yet, the majority implies that Keen Mountain must *209not only provide group meals and group prayers but must provide them independently of each other, though Lovelace never requested of Keen Mountain that he be permitted to participate in one activity and not the other. Thus the majority once again takes an admirably progressive policy and finds inventive ways to pick fault with it.
Even if the majority’s depiction of the policy were accurate, it would be reasonable for a prison to consider adherence to the Ramadan fast, the central feature of Ramadan, an indicator of genuine interest in Ramadan observance as a whole. See Mosier v. Maynard, 937 F.2d 1521, 1527 (10th Cir.1991) (noting the “primacy of personal statements and conduct” in evaluating the sincerity of requests for religious accommodation); Beerheide v. Suthers, 82 F.Supp.2d 1190, 1194 (D.Colo.2000) (examining evidence of inmate’s other religious practices in determining sincerity of request for Kosher meals). The majority would apparently have courts second-guess prisons’ determinations as to each subset of each inmate’s particular religious practices. In the majority’s view, an inmate might be sincere as to subtenet A of a religious practice and insincere with respect to subtenets B and C and administrators will have to sort through and acco-modate. To be blunt, a requirement this refined will exceed anyone’s knowledge or understanding of the infinite variety of religious observance, and it will drive prison administrators crazy.
As to alternative services, to say that Keen Mountain should have provided them is to lose sight of the fact that Keen Mountain does already provide a wide array of religious programming, including Islamic services other than the Ramadan event at issue here. All the prison asks is that inmates select their preferred observance in a timely manner. Inmates signed up for Ramadan observances voluntarily, fully aware that participation required adherence to the fast. An inmate who preferred not to observe the fast could choose another form of religious service, including regular Friday Jumu'ah services. It cannot be a defect in a policy that it provides inmates with the religious accommodations they request. Nor is it a defect when Keen Mountain is unable immediately to provide alternate accommodations should inmates abandon their original intentions. Prisons require adequate notice to accommodate changes in religious requests, and their doing so in no way imposes a substantial burden on religious practice.
In this case, Lovelace did not change his mind about his observance preferences but instead alleges that a guard wrongly reported him as having broken the observance he chose. The guard may certainly have burdened Lovelace’s religious exercise. But the majority seems to believe that Keen Mountain should have had backup religious accommodations at the ready for this contingency. This goes far beyond RLUIPA’s requirements: it asks prisons not only to accommodate sincere religious requests but to anticipate and provide for any possible complication. This argument only underscores the fact the prison policy posed no violation of RLUIPA.
Thus, neither the plaintiff nor the majority has established that the prison’s Ramadan policy imposes any kind of substantial burden on religious exercise. It goes admirably beyond the policies that other courts have upheld. In permitting inmates to leave their cells for group meals and prayers, the policy stands out among its peers as particularly accommodating. In its restriction to sincere observers, it is entirely in accordance with Supreme Court precedent, all of which has characterized a sincerity requirement not as a substantial burden but as a “threshold question” in *210matters of religious accommodation. See Seeger, 380 U.S. at 185, 85 S.Ct. 850. To repeat: any substantial burden on Lovelace’s religious exercise arose from one individual's abuse of the prison policy, not the policy itself.
II.
Even assuming that a prison policy so accommodating of religious exercise as this one could impose a substantial burden, plaintiffs claim still fails because the policy is narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-l(a). RLUIPA does not give prisoners an unfettered right to religious accommodation. Rather, the statute mandates “due deference to the experience and expertise of prison and jail administrators.” Cutter, 544 U.S. at 723, 125 S.Ct. 2113. And, while the Act adopts a compelling governmental interest standard, “context matters in the application of that standard.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
A.
To begin with, the majority’s approach exhibits not deference, but distrust. Although due deference is nowhere more appropriate than in the context of a state prison program that implicates order, safety, and security, see Madison, 355 F.3d at 321, the majority uses Keen Mountain’s Ramadan policy as a platform from which to initiate an assault on state correctional facilities. It affords, not “due deference,” but no deference to “the experience and expertise” of prison officials. Compare Cutter, 544 U.S. at 723, 125 S.Ct. 2113. The majority refuses to find any compelling interest in regulating state prisons and looks for “arguable]” grounds on which to remand. Maj. Op. at 191. But, since it barely discusses the actual policy, it perforce does not suggest what would satisfy its standard on remand. In remanding, the majority transforms a landmark statute on religious liberty into an administratively unworkable and constitutionally infirm quagmire. At bottom, the majority’s no-deference approach is synonymous with federal court control of routine prison policy.
Sadly, it is not just in its readiness to find fault with prison policy that the majority’s lack of deference is apparent. One looks in vain for any appreciation of the number of inmates Keen Mountain prison administrators supervise, the budgetary restrictions they labor under, the staffing problems they encounter, or what other religious practices they may be required to accommodate. One needs no remand to understand these facts of life in a prison setting. Somehow, in the majority’s theoretical judicial universe, considerations such as these have melted into insignificance. They are highly significant for prison administrators, however, because they are the practical and often intractable difficulties with which officials must daily deal. The majority’s unwillingness to discuss the particular, often ameliorative, features of Keen Mountain’s policy is compounded by its equally adamant refusal even to acknowledge the constraints of the setting in which the policy must be implemented. Compare Cutter, 544 U.S. at 723, 125 S.Ct. 2113 (“[CJontext matters in the application of [the compelling interest] standard.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). It is this lack of appreciation for reality outside the courtroom that will in time pose the greatest threat to RLUI-PA’s aims.
This approach cannot be squared with the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Cutter. To be sure, the majority quotes liberally from Cutter’s repeated injunctions for caution. But the majority ignores its own exhortations to consider Keen Moun*211tain’s prison “context,” Maj. Op. at 189 (quoting Cutter, 544 U.S. at 723, 125 S.Ct. 2113), in which “security deserves ‘particular sensitivity,’ ” id. (quoting Cutter, 544 U.S. at 723, 125 S.Ct. 2113), and where “due deference to the experience and expertise of prison and jail administrators” must be given, id. (quoting Cutter, 544 U.S. at 723, 125 S.Ct. 2113). Compare Beard, 126 S.Ct. at 2581 (“The [court of appeal’s] statements and conclusions here also offer too little deference to the judgment of prison officials.”). If the majority’s intensifying scrutiny of state prisons affords “due deference” to prison officials, then those words have lost their meaning.
The majority’s no-deference approach conflicts with the approach adopted by other courts of appeals. See, e.g., Borzych v. Frank, 439 F.3d 388, 390-91 (7th Cir.2006); Hoevenaar v. Lazaroff, 422 F.3d 366, 370-72 (6th Cir.2005); Brunskill v. Boyd, 141 Fed.Appx. 771, 776 (11th Cir.2005). In Hoevenaar, for example, the Sixth Circuit reversed the district court for failing to give proper deference to the expertise and experience of prison officials. 422 F.3d at 370-72. The district court there had fashioned its own exception to a prison hairstyle regulation for low-risk inmates. See id. at 368. The court then concluded that its own version of the policy was a “less restrictive means,” and, as a result, that the actual prison policy violated RLUIPA. Id. The Sixth Circuit reversed, holding that the district court “under the guise of’ the least restrictive means test had “improperly substituted its judgment for that of prison officials.” Id. at 370. This was “just what the Supreme Court and Congress have warned against.” Id. (original emphasis omitted). The majority today makes the same mistake: it invites lower courts to substitute their own judgment for that of prison officials.
The majority’s no-deference view today also conflicts with our own precedent. In Madison, we upheld RLUIPA against a facial Establishment Clause challenge. 355 F.3d at 322. In so doing, we rejected Virginia’s allegations that “RLUIPA’s compelling interest test will bind [the Commonwealth’s] hands” and “hamstring the ability of the Commonwealth’s correctional officials to ensure order and safety in the Commonwealth’s prisons.” Id. at 321. RLUIPA would do no such thing, we explained, because it “still affords prison administrators with flexibility to regulate prisoners’ religious practices.” Id. We found compelling the experience of federal correctional officials who, under the materially identical provisions of RFRA, continued to prevail in the overwhelming majority of cases alleging a substantial burden. See id. The majority, however, countermands RLUIPA’s effort to “afford[ ] prison administrators with flexibility to regulate prisoners’ religious practices.” Id. Instead, the majority’s approach would soon draw federal courts into the minute details of penal institutions, a result Cutter refused to countenance. See Cutter, 544 U.S. at 723, 125 S.Ct. 2113.
B.
Although the majority fails to recognize any compelling governmental interest in regulating the pre-dawn and after-dark release of inmates from their cells, this does not mean there are none. Indeed, the majority suggests that in remanding it asks only that Keen Mountain explain the policy’s restrictions by referencing “any institutional need to maintain good order, security, and discipline or to control costs.” Maj. Op. at 191. But a number of those “institutional need[s]” are clear from the face of the Ramadan policy: a policy enacted with safety and security considerations front and center. See J.A. 27, 188. *212To begin with, the policy provided for orderly administration of after-hours meals. See J.A. 27. Inmates were expected, for example, to be prompt and on time for meals — late participants were not to be admitted. Id. The safety and security interests inherent in the policy are just as evident. Indeed, the purpose of the Ramadan Master Pass List was to provide the names of participating inmates (inmates who would be released from their cells to participate in group activities during nonstandard hours) to security and food service staff. Id. Inmates were “out-counted” after every meal. Id. The policy also provided that meal times and schedules could be “altered” by the Security Supervisor in order “to meet the needs of the operation of the institution.” Id. Finally, prison security staff were charged with reporting inmates observed at other meals to the Assistant Warden of Operations. Id.
In short, the “institutional need to maintain good order, security, and discipline” by keeping track of inmates and their out-of-cell activities could not be more evident. See Maj. Op. at 15. The compelling interest that the majority purports to demand is plainly contained within the four corners of the very policy it calls into question. Indeed, Keen Mountain’s compelling interests in safety, security, and cost control escape no one but the majority. The institutional interests certainly did not escape plaintiff Lovelace, who in his petition for appeal noted that Keen Mountain administrators had “adamantly and steadfastly maintained that them actions against plaintiff were intentional, purposeful, and necessary to maintain security.” J.A. 188 (emphasis added).
One need not therefore “generat[e] explanations,” Maj. Op. at 194, to see that the Commonwealth’s “legitimate interest in removing inmates from religious dietary programs” where the inmate fails to comply with program rules, J.A. 57, evinces these security and other interests — namely, order, discipline, and the effective functioning of Keen Mountain. Nowhere are such interests more compelling than in the after-hours release of prisoners from their cells. See Brown-El, 26 F.3d at 69 (“[Pjrison staff is reduced at night and escape risks increase after dark.”).
I recognize that administrative convenience is normally seen as a rational or legitimate interest, not a compelling one. It is hard to imagine, however, how these general administrative interests, when advanced in the prison setting, could be other than sufficiently intertwined with the more serious interests in safety and security so as to render them compelling. As the Supreme Court recognized in Cutter, it is simply impossible to divorce a prison’s compelling interests in safety and security from internal administration and order. See Cutter, 544 U.S. at 723, 726, 125 S.Ct. 2113.
The Ramadan policy releases a large number of inmates from their cells at nonstandard hours for group meals and prayer. While one might hope for good deportment on the part of those released, it cannot be guaranteed. Personal animosities and religious rivalries may exist and spill over into these gatherings. Some inmates, for example, may think other inmates insufficiently observant and view them as taking unfair advantage of the offered religious accommodation. Some inmates may believe that others are taking more than their fair share of food, particularly where, as here, they have been fasting all day and are hungry. Tempers can flare from the simple act of someone cutting in line. We would hope that such differences would not erupt in altercations, but we cannot be sure. Dining rooms occasionally prove to be rowdy environ*213ments for camps and schools, not to mention prisons. In this volatile setting, even the most rudimentary dictates of caution suggest that we recognize as compelling the need to administer the Keen Mountain Ramadan program in a safe and secure fashion. It is simply no answer to say that all of this will be explored by the district court on remand because it is precisely the sort of judicial finetuning invited by remand that the Supreme Court has repeatedly deplored. See, e.g., Cutter, 544 U.S. at 723, 125 S.Ct. 2113.
C.
I also disagree with any suggestion that the Virginia policy is not narrowly tailored. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-l(a). It is indeed difficult to imagine a more narrowly tailored policy than the one Virginia now has. The Ramadan policy tracks the religious rules of Ramadan itself and “removes from the procedures only those worshippers who choose to break the fast.” See Brown-El, 26 F.3d at 70. The so-called “broad” removal provision, see Maj. Op. at 3, contains only one limitation: it merely ensures the good intentions of program participants. It is critical for a correctional facility to verify that the individuals it accommodates — with special meals, group prayer sessions, and the like — are genuinely interested in the stated purpose of assembly. And, as we have recognized, protecting religious freedoms creates the temptation for inmates to win special privileges by advancing false religious claims. See Madison, 355 F.3d at 319. Nothing in RLUIPA requires authorities to discount this danger.
The policy’s removal provision, moreover, is narrowly tailored in that it goes to great lengths to provide inmates a number of procedural protections. The policy allows incident reports to be filed only with Mr. Shinault, the Assistant Warden of Operations. J.A. 27. And the policy further protects inmates from wrongful removal by specifying that reports may be filed only by security and food service staff, not by other inmates. Id.
The majority protests, however, that the removal provision is “broad” and “far reaching” because it excludes inmates who violate the tenets of Ramadan from prayer services as well as meals. Maj. Op. at 192, 17. But, as noted earlier, the group meals and accompanying prayers are a single religious accommodation, not separate events. With respect to narrow tailoring, moreover, the distinction between meals and group prayer is one without a difference. Freeing inmates during pre-dawn and post-sunset hours may entail security risks regardless of whether inmates are released from their cells to attend group prayer or to receive a meal. See Walker v. Blackwell, 411 F.2d 23, 25 (5th Cir.1969) (“The movement of people after the sun is down presents a problem.”). Second, as the majority apparently concedes with respect to the meals, an institution may verify the religious sincerity of Ramadan participants. The difficulty, of course, is in the majority’s distinction between meals and prayer. The breaking of the Ramadan fast suggests a lack of genuine interest in any Ramadan activity. If the majority recognizes this for the meals, it should recognize it also for the prayers.
The majority also suggests that the Ramadan policy is not the “least restrictive means” available because Lovelace was unable to attend alternative religious services. Maj. Op. at 193. But the policy implements a broader institutional concern: Virginia’s Department of Corrections, for obvious organizational and safety reasons, allows inmates to participate in the religion of their choice, but only one religion, per calendar quarter. Compare *21428 C.F.R. § 548.20(c) (inmate may attend one religious group’s ceremonial meal per calendar year). Such a policy is not just an appropriate means of achieving Keen Mountain’s compelling interests in restricting inmate movement and maintaining proper order. See Spavone, 420 F.Supp.2d at 240. This aspect of the policy' — like the policy as a whole — honors and respects the desire of Muslim inmates to observe the Ramadan fast. The policy does this by recognizing the occasion of the fast as a practice of deep religious significance, not an exercise in who can sneak an extra meal or spend more time out of a cell.
Rather than accepting the policy for the generous accommodation it is or attempting to explain how the policy imposes a substantial burden, the majority offers a remand. The remand offers no help whatsoever to the lower court or the litigants. The only instruction the majority gives is that the district court should decide on remand whether the policy is the “least restrictive way” of furthering prison interests. See Maj. Op. at 193. Restating the legal standard, however, provides no guidance, and the majority thus invites an open-ended and potentially wide-ranging inquiry into prison administration. This approach may well require extensive testimony on the part of prison administrators and may devolve into a proverbial battle of the experts. It is no answer to say that the district court might ultimately decide to uphold the policy on remand: remand is itself an instruction to the district court to delve into minute prison details.
Second, narrow tailoring in the prison context cannot mean what the majority suggests. I quite understand and agree that RLUIPA directs prison administrators to employ the “least restrictive means.” See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-l(a)(2). But just last term in Cutter, the Supreme Court made clear that RLUIPA does not “elevate accommodation of religious observances over an institution’s need to maintain order and safety,” 544 U.S. at 722, 125 S.Ct. 2113, and that RLUIPA does not relieve courts from their normal habits of restraint and deference in this most sensitive of settings, id. at 723, 125 S.Ct. 2113 (quoting 146 Cong. Rec. S7775 (July 27, 2000) (joint statement of Sen. Hatch and Sen. Kennedy)). One need only read the majority’s opinion, however, to discover that it means for the lower court to conduct a fact-intensive inquiry into every conceivable prison policy that Keen Mountain might have adopted. The majority is quite clear on this when it says that Keen Mountain’s Ramadan policy is “arguably not the least restrictive means” available to prison authorities. Maj. Op. at 192 (emphasis added). Gone is even the pretense of deference: on remand, burdened prison personnel must now field questions about how many and what kind of alternative means might possibly exist for providing meals or holding hearings. This approach of remanding individual grievances for hearings on speculatively superior general policies will have prison administrators chasing their tails. Thus does the remand wield the least restrictive means test as a tool by which lower courts may endlessly second-guess prison officials. See Hoevenaar, 422 F.3d at 370 (finding the lower court had “improperly substituted its judgment for that of prison officials”). This is “just what the Supreme Court and Congress have warned against.” See id. (original emphasis omitted).
D.
The majority’s real quarrel is not with the policy but with Lovelace’s personal inability to observe Ramadan. But to require policies to accommodate every set of individual circumstances not only creates *215an administrative morass; it also places prison administrators on a collision course with the values embodied in the Establishment Clause and with core federalism principles.
Under the majority’s approach, federal judges “become the primary arbiters of what constitutes the best solution” to every religious accommodation problem. See Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987). Questions regarding meals, dress, hygiene, hair styles, and cell decor must now be addressed by federal courts, because all these things can bear upon religious observance. It will be the unusual activity indeed that cannot be connected to the religious tenets of some subset of the prison population. Thus, if Keen Mountain is to be faulted for not accommodating Lovelace individually, there will be no limit to judicial entanglement in the day-to-day operations of prisons. See Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 362, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996). This cannot be the result Congress intended. Indeed, Congress, which passed RLUIPA, also enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (2000), precisely to eliminate such “unwarranted federal-court interference with the administration of prisons.” Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. -, -, 126 S.Ct. 2378, 2387, 165 L.Ed.2d 368 (2006) (footnote omitted).
To satisfy the majority’s desire to accommodate Lovelace — or any inmate — individually, it would appear that prisons would have to hold hearings on dramatically different schedules in order to ensure timely disposition of grievances relating to everything from one-day observances such as Christmas, to days-long observances such as Passover, to month-long observances such as Ramadan. To tie the timeliness of hearings to the timing and duration of different religious observances would seem an awkward and constitutionally problematic task. The duration of some observances is not even agreed upon. The Easter holiday, for example, might be understood to comprise the period from the beginning of Lent to Easter Sunday, Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday, Good Friday to Easter Sunday, or Easter Sunday alone. The majority would place prison officials in the position of making difficult judgments about religious questions and being repaid for their efforts by an inmate’s complaints that he received a hearing in time for Easter Sunday but not for Good Friday. Should the majority attempt to cure this difficulty with something like a one-day rule — by which religious grievances are addressed within a day- — -such a rule might work well with respect to Ramadan but would be disadvantageous to faiths with holidays of shorter duration. And, of course, the actual hearings themselves would have to be scheduled not only on an accommodating date but at an accommodating hour.
To read into the requirement of narrow tailoring a requirement approaching individual accommodation will run administrators ragged. It will have no end.
One simply cannot divorce the device of strict scrutiny from setting and context. See Cutter, 544 U.S. at 722-23, 125 S.Ct. 2113. As the Supreme Court has cautioned: “Subjecting the day-to-day judgments of prison officials to an inflexible strict scrutiny analysis would seriously hamper their ability to anticipate security problems and to adopt innovative solutions to the intractable problems of prison administration.” Lewis, 518 U.S. at 361, 116 S.Ct. 2174 (quoting Turner, 482 U.S. at 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254). State prison systems cannot accommodate, to the degree foreshadowed by the majority’s remand, the religious beliefs and practices of hundreds of different faiths. See Charles v. Verhagen, *216220 F.Supp.2d 937, 946-47 (W.D.Wis.2002) (it would be “utterly impractical to allow each of 300 denominations to have its own feast day”). Religions, by their very nature, entail rich and varied forms of worship. Accommodating, in the sense that the majority understands the word, even a small subset of those practices may well stretch prison resources to the breaking point. “Prison administrators, like most government officials, have limited resources to provide the services they are called upon to administer.” Al-Alamin v. Gramley, 926 F.2d 680, 686 (7th Cir.1991). The sheer number of religious dietary requirements could stress the chef of a gourmet restaurant, much less an overburdened staff in a prison kitchen. Likewise, the accommodation of religious exercises at nonstandard hours creates added security risks, see Brown-El, 26 F.3d at 69, and requires additional guards and staff, see Walker, 411 F.2d at 25. These are not minor concerns — wardens cannot, for example, “just hire anybody off the street.” Id. at 26.
The RLUIPA envisioned by the majority also creates unnecessary tensions between the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses. But RLUIPA represents Congress’ effort to navigate the “corridor between the Religion Clauses.” See Cutter, 544 U.S. at 720, 125 S.Ct. 2113. It requires courts to “take adequate account of the burdens a requested accommodation may impose on nonbeneficiaries,” and to ensure neutral administration “among different faiths.” Id. Indeed, the Supreme Court declined to “read RLUIPA to elevate accommodation of religious observances over an institution’s need to maintain order and safety” precisely because the two Religion Clauses “tend to clash with the other.” Id. at 719, 722, 125 S.Ct. 2113.
Under the majority’s contrary approach, however, “accommodation may devolve into an unlawful fostering of religion.” Corp. of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327, 334-35, 107 S.Ct. 2862, 97 L.Ed.2d 273 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted). Whether or not the result posited by the majority would lead to an Establishment Clause violation in fact, see Madison, 355 F.3d at 322, it would surely generate difficult constitutional questions. At a minimum, the RLUIPA envisioned by the majority will lead to claims of discrimination among faiths. For example, prison administrators forced to provide specially tailored hearings and procedures risk the appearance of impermissibly “singling] out [] particular religious sect[s] for special treatment.” See Bd. of Educ. of Kiryas Joel Vill. Sch. Dist. v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687, 706, 114 S.Ct. 2481, 129 L.Ed.2d 546 (1994). It is not difficult to imagine one inmate perceiving all sorts of slights to his religious faith because another inmate down the corridor received some special religious privilege or unique form of treatment. And even if prison officials manage to satisfy the various dress, dietary, scheduling, and hearings requirements of all religious beliefs, such close tailoring of prison procedures to the details of myriad faiths might constitute excessive government involvement with religion beyond that which the Constitution allows. See Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 613, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971).
Moreover, RLUIPA does not abrogate traditional understandings of federalism and separation of powers in the context of prison management. Rather, as this court has observed: “[Cjoncerns of federalism and comparative expertise militate against federal court supervision of administrative decisions made by state departments of corrections.” Lenz v. Washington, 444 *217F.3d 295, 304 (4th Cir.2006). “[I]t is ‘difficult to imagine an activity in which a State has a stronger interest, or one that is more intricately bound up with state laws, regulations, and procedures, than the administration of its prisons.’ ” Woodford, 548 U.S. at -, 126 S.Ct. at 2388 (quoting Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 491-92, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973)). Courts are justified in assuming, therefore, that RLUIPA intended to modify, but not to trample upon, states’ traditional prerogatives in this area. See Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452, 457-61, 111 S.Ct. 2395, 115 L.Ed.2d 410 (1991). In fact, the need to support these prerogatives with more than lip service is amplified by federalism concerns, as RLUIPA deals exclusively with state, rather than federal, prisons. See Turner, 482 U.S. at 85, 107 S.Ct. 2254.
If Cutter conveyed no other message, it signaled to federal courts that RLUIPA must “be applied in an appropriately balanced way.” 544 U.S. at 722, 125 S.Ct. 2113. But where the Supreme Court has said, “proceed with caution,” the majority has pressed the accelerator. Heedless of the deference due the expertise of prison administrators, heedless of basic principles of statutory interpretation, heedless even of the constitutional dangers of its approach, the majority has placed federal courts at the center of daily prison policy-making.
In so doing, the majority may be undermining the very ideal of religious freedom that RLUIPA is meant to protect. The Supreme Court has counseled caution and deference precisely because, without them, religious accommodation in the penological context threatens to become the tail that wags the dog. Absent due restraint, “inmate requests for religious accommodations [may] become excessive, impose unjustified burdens on other institutionalized persons, or jeopardize the effective functioning of an institution.” See Cutter, 544 U.S. at 726, 125 S.Ct. 2113. The Supreme Court has stated categorically that RLUI-PA does not license such excesses, and that, should they come to pass, “facilities] would be free to resist the imposition” by bringing as-applied constitutional challenges to RLUIPA. Id. In not granting due deference to prisons in cases like this one, the majority is virtually ensuring that prisons will, in turn, now have to seek their own day in court.
Rather than remanding for further hearings on narrow tailoring, the valid policy at issue here should be upheld and Lovelace should be allowed to proceed against Lester in his claim for deliberate abuse of religious liberty.
III.
A.
Because RLUIPA broadly defines “government” to include “any person acting under color of State law,” I agree that prison officials may be sued in their individual capacities. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000ce-5(4). But the availability of such suits says nothing about whether money damages — in addition to injunctive and declaratory relief — are “appropriate relief.” I do not, however, take up the question of money damages with respect to individual defendants because the majority expressly reserves that question. Maj. Op. at 195-196 n. 7.
B.
The majority also leaves open the question of whether RLUIPA imposes liability for deliberate indifference or other “less than intentional” conduct, Maj. Op. at 195. But this question is not difficult. At the time that Congress passed RLUIPA, the standard for infringements of religious liberty was one of intent. See Employment *218Div., Dept. of Human Res. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 878-79, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990). There is no indication at all in RLUIPA that Congress intended to change or modify this intent standard to one of deliberate indifference. In this case, the appellant never alleged a deliberately indifferent violation of RLUIPA or argued for the creation of such a standard: Thus the majority creates the issue and then leaves it open.
As to the issue more generally, Congress has said what Congress has said. As the majority acknowledges, in drafting RLUIPA, Congress did not create a state-of-mind standard. See Maj. Op. at 20-21. Instead it enhanced religious protection through other parts of the statute, such as the standard of review and the burden of persuasion. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc-l(a), 2(b); see also City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 517, 529, 117 S.Ct. 2157, 138 L.Ed.2d 624 (1997) (suggesting that RFRA, RLUIPA’s predecessor, intended to enhance protection against intentional violations of free exercise by altering burden of proof). Congress was well aware of the legal backdrop against which it legislated, and where it did not enunciate changes, we would be wise to assume it meant to keep the same law. See Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 792, 118 S.Ct. 2275, 141 L.Ed.2d 662 (1998) (employing the “presumption that Congress was aware of prior judicial interpretations and, in effect, adopted them”). “[I]t is not our function to engraft on a statute additions which we think the legislature logically might or should have made.” United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U.S. 600, 603, 61 S.Ct. 742, 85 L.Ed. 1071 (1941).
A contrary assumption would not only contravene tenets of statutory interpretation but would also impose a state-of-mind standard on states of which they had no notice, in violation of the Spending Clause. “[Ljegislation enacted pursuant to the spending power is much in the nature of a contract, and therefore, to be bound by federally imposed conditions, recipients of federal funds must accept them voluntarily and knowingly. States cannot knowingly accept conditions of which they are unaware or which they are unable to ascertain.” Arlington Cent. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Murphy, 548 U.S. -, -, 126 S.Ct. 2455, 2459, 165 L.Ed.2d 526 (2006) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the Commonwealth was not on notice of a deliberate indifference standard at the time that it accepted federal funds under RLUIPA. To suggest and then leave open the question of such a standard is commensurate with neither deference or restraint.
rv.
Not content to draw into question the prison policy under RLUIPA, the majority finds fault with it on no less than two constitutional grounds. According to the majority, a remand on these issues is appropriate “for obvious reasons.” Maj. Op. at 200 n. 9. But to remand in a straightforward case such as this not only violates “the policy of judicial restraint regarding prisoner complaints” that the Supreme Court requires, see Turner, 482 U.S. at 85, 107 S.Ct. 2254 (internal quotation marks omitted), but also ignores well settled principles of judicial economy, see, e.g., Beverati v. Smith, 120 F.3d 500, 503 (4th Cir.1997). An appellate court may independently determine whether summary judgment was appropriate on alternative grounds. See id. The Ramadan policy poses no issue under either the Free Exercise or the Due Process Clauses and a remand is thus both unnecessary and inappropriate.
*219A.
In its eagerness to subject the Ramadan policy to judicial scrutiny, the majority finds a free exercise problem here.3 Here summary judgment is proper both because the Ramadan policy imposes no burden and because it meets Turner’s deferential test.
To remand for unspecified further proceedings on a prison policy that imposes no burden overlooks settled law. While the majority is correct that a prison regulation — even one that burdens religious exercise- — -is valid if it survives Turner analysis, it altogether ignores Turner’s antecedent inquiry. Turner “assumes as a predicate that the plaintiff inmate has demonstrated that a constitutionally protected interest is at stake,” and that the challenged policy actually burdens this interest. DeHart v. Horn, 227 F.3d 47, 51 (3d Cir.2000) (en banc). The free exercise inquiry thus ends where “[t]he answer to the threshold question is that there is no infringement of religious freedom.” Lakewood, Ohio Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Inc. v. City of Lakewood, 699 F.2d 303, 308 (6th Cir.1983). Where plaintiffs have “failed to sustain their burden ... of establishing ... a substantial burden on [plaintiffs’] exercise of religion” summary judgment is therefore appropriate. Goodall ex rel. Goodall v. Stafford County Sch. Bd., 60 F.3d 168, 173 (4th Cir.1995).
The foregoing discussion of RLUIPA more than suffices to dispose of the free exercise claims here. The Ramadan policy imposes no burden, much less a substantial one. The majority’s analysis of burden under the Free Exercise Clause therefore suffers the same infirmities as its analysis of burdens under RLUIPA. The Turner inquiry, moreover, prompts an even more deferential standard of review than does RLUIPA. Turner says that prison policy need only be “reasonably related to legitimate security interests.” Turner, 482 U.S. at 91, 107 S.Ct. 2254. “By using the language of rational basis scrutiny, the Supreme Court chose the most deferential possible standard of review,” Long Term Admin. Segregation of Inmates Designated as Five Percenters v. Moore, 174 F.3d 464, 469 (4th Cir.1999), a standard certainly more deferential than that employed by Congress and the Court in the context of RLUIPA.
Because the Ramadan policy imposes no burden, and because it is “an eminently rational means of achieving the compelling governmental and penological interests of maintaining order, discipline and safety in prisons,” see Hines, 148 F.3d at 358, summary judgment on plaintiffs free exercise claim was appropriate. See Goodall ex rel. Goodall, 60 F.3d at 173. To remand here stands the Free Exercise Clause on its head.
B.
I agree with the majority that the plaintiffs procedural due process claim against defendants Lee and Shinault fails because their actions were, at most, negligent, and negligent deprivation does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause. See Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 328, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986); Pink v. Lester, 52 F.3d 73, 75 (4th Cir.1995). But the majority insists upon overturning the district court and remanding for a determination of whether the prison grievance *220process, as established by Warden Lee in his official capacity, violated Lovelace’s due process rights.
Reversal and remand are once again unnecessary, because it is clear from the record that no due process deprivation exists. Even assuming that Lovelace was deprived of a protected liberty interest,4 the record nevertheless establishes that the procedures protecting his interest were adequate. The prison’s complaint procedures afforded him the attention of the institution’s highest administrators within days. Lovelace filed informal complaints with the Warden and Assistant Warden two days after the incident. One complaint was addressed within a day and the other within two. Lovelace then appealed this outcome through the two-stage Virginia Department of Corrections formal grievance process, which culminated with a decision from the Regional Director on January 4, 2003.
The majority makes much of the fact that the formal grievance process did not conclude until one month after Ramadan, see Maj. Op. at 204, but surely the real issue is not how long the process took but how quickly it began. The majority cannot be suggesting that the Virginia Department of Corrections should be faulted for providing more, rather than fewer, levels of administrative review to prisoner complaints. Nor, I hope, is the majority asserting that every level of administrative appeal should occur within the time parameters set by any given religious holiday.
For prison officials to have provided Lovelace with more process, either they would have had to tailor their grievance procedures to the timeframe of Ramadan, or they would have had to do as Lovelace urges and allow him more opportunity to present evidence of his innocence. Under the three-factor Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test, it is clear that either change would be unwarranted. See 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976).5 In no way disparaging the private liberty interest represented in the first Eldridge prong, it is outweighed by the concerns embodied in the second and third. Under the second Eldridge prong, it is uncertain that either alternative procedure would have offered the plaintiff better protection against a correctional officer’s blatant falsehoods. Id. Prison procedures are by nature designed to place some modicum of trust in the people implementing them. It is completely understandable that prison officials would rely upon the eyewitness testimony of a guard and that prison policies would not be geared to allow for face-to-face confrontations between guards and inmates every time there were conflicting accounts of a particular event. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 567, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974) (“If confrontation and cross-examination of those furnishing evidence against the inmate were to be allowed as a matter of course, as in *221criminal trials, there would be considerable potential for havoc inside prison walls.”).
Meanwhile, under the third Eldridge prong, any change in procedure would entail significant unjustifiable costs. See Eldridge, 424 U.S. at 335, 96 S.Ct. 893. Conforming grievance procedures to religious holidays would present insurmountable administrative difficulties.6 One-day holidays would be virtually impossible to accommodate, and prison procedures in general would have to be tailored and re-tailored to the demands of a blinding variety of religious calendars. Such an approach would not only impose daunting administrative costs, but it would also rob prison procedures of perhaps the most important features of any fair process: uniformity and impartiality. It would moreover have the perverse effect of encouraging inmates to put even secular grievances in religious terms, in order to receive speedier or special treatment. See Madison, 355 F.3d at 319. It is thus difficult not to conclude that the prison’s uniform post-deprivation grievance process is more constitutionally sound than the suggested alternatives. See Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 543—44, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981) (post-deprivation hearing sufficient to satisfy due process).
Similarly, demanding that Virginia prisons allow inmates more of an opportunity to present evidence in administrative proceedings would require a costly and potentially dangerous overhaul of state prison procedures. See, e.g., Wolff, 418 U.S. at 568-69, 94 S.Ct. 2963. The procedures through which the plaintiffs grievance was addressed are the same procedures used to handle all inmate complaints, including other alleged constitutional violations. In formulating those procedures, the state has had to strike a difficult balance designed to identify bona fide grievances, discourage frivolous ones, and promote both fairness and efficiency. In considering due process challenges, “federal courts ought to afford appropriate deference and flexibility to state officials trying to manage a volatile environment.” Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 482, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995).
The problem from Lovelace’s perspective was not that the prison did not offer a rapid response to his complaint but that its response was negative. Virginia has devised a set of procedures that attempts to strike the right balance in addressing a wide variety of inmate grievances. It cannot guarantee the right outcome in every circumstance, and where it does not, the courts remain open to the wronged inmate. See Wolff 418 U.S. at 579, 94 S.Ct. 2963. But the courts are there to remedy the particular wrong, not to overhaul the entire system. The majority is using an individual wrong as a springboard for the worst kind of judicial intrusion. In doing so, it has lost sight of the fact that “[f]ed-eral courts sit not to supervise prisons but to enforce ... constitutional rights.” Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 321, 92 S.Ct. 1079, 31 L.Ed.2d 263 (1972).
V.
RLUIPA expresses the view that all persons, however circumstanced, should be *222able to derive the support and sustenance that comes from the practice of their particular faiths. It also expresses the hope that the personal strength derived through faith will manifest itself in rehabilitative efforts, respect for others, and a record of good institutional citizenship. These indisputable values are balanced, however, against the difficulties of managing confined and hence combustible prison environments. See Cutter, 544 U.S. at 726, 125 S.Ct. 2113. Not content to recognize this case for what it is — a possibly legitimate complaint by a Muslim prison inmate that his Ramadan fasting rights were deliberately and maliciously violated by a prison guard — the majority expands it to what it is not, an excuse for top-to-bottom finetun-ing of an accommodating policy designed to foster the very values of religious expression set forth in RLUIPA.
If this policy does not merit the majority’s approval, then I am hard pressed to think of one that will. It is unfortunate that a policy designed to respect the Ramadan fast for the profound observance that it is should become the means for potentially tying prisons up in knots. No one argues that a court should blindly accept any justification for a prison policy that interferes with religious exercise. But to substitute its own judgment for the accommodative judgment of prison administrators is just as bad. See Cutter, 544 U.S. at 717, 723, 725, 125 S.Ct. 2113 n. 13; Turner, 482 U.S. at 84-85, 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254; Madison, 355 F.3d at 321. It is difficult to overstate the administrative gridlock, penological misjudgments, and unwitting privileging of certain faiths over others that courts will make while embarking on the majority’s course. With all respect to my friends in the majority, they have gone much too far and in the process have created administrative and constitutional problems that will come in time to endanger and diminish true religious liberty-

. The Supreme Court in Thomas actually held, “Where the state conditions receipt of an important benefit upon conduct proscribed by a religious faith, or where it denies such a benefit because of conduct mandated by religious belief, thereby putting substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs, a burden upon religion exists.” 450 U.S. at 717-18, 101 S.Ct. 1425 (emphasis added).
The present case does not fit this definition at all. The state has conditioned no benefit upon proscribed conduct. Instead, the state has provided otherwise unavailable benefits— group assemblies and out-of-hours meals — in the interest of religious exercise and has only conditioned them on behavior in accordance with, rather than proscribed by, inmates' religious beliefs. Thus the majority’s attempt to ground its standard in Supreme Court authority is unpersuasive. This inaccuracy is immaterial, however, as the policy here does not constitute a substantial burden under any reasonable definition of the term.

. The majority characterizes Lovelace's removal from the Ramadan pass list as "discipline (punishment for his alleged infraction).1' Maj. Op. at 189. The plaintiff was removed from the pass list not as a punishment but because he appeared to have broken his own fast.

. I agree with the majority that Lovelace's free exercise claim against defendants Lee and Shinault fails because their actions were at most negligent. I also agree that the facts, taken in the light most favorable to Lovelace, raise a genuine dispute about whether Lester acted intentionally in depriving Lovelace of his free exercise rights.

. A liberty interest "may arise from the Constitution itself ... or it may arise from an expectation or interest created by state laws or policies." Wilkinson v. Austin, 545 U.S. 209, 221, 125 S.Ct. 2384, 162 L.Ed.2d 174 (2005). Lovelace's liberty interest in this case would presumably be his interest in observing the Ramadan fast, derived from his constitutional free exercise right.

. Eldridge requires courts to balance, "[fjirst, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.” 424 U.S. at 335, 96 S.Ct. 893.

. By way of comparison, the Federal Bureau of Prisons explicitly provides that inmates removed from religious diets for failure to conform to their requirements "may not be immediately reestablished back into the program.” 28 C.F.R. § 548.20(b). Indeed, "[t]he process of reapproving a religious diet for an inmate who voluntarily withdraws or who is removed ordinarily may extend up to thirty days.” Id. This timeframe is deemed necessary "[i]n order to preserve the integrity and orderly operation of the religious diet program and to prevent fraud.” Id.