Reversing a lower court’s ruling on Tuesday, the federal appeals court based in Colorado reinstated the lawsuit of a Muslim man against a state correctional officer for allegedly forcing him to shave his beard – despite a policy that allowed for beards as religious expression.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit concluded that if the claims of Tajuddin Ashaheed were true, Sgt. Thomas E. Currington infringed on Ashaheed’s free exercise of his religion and acted contrary to the policy of the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center.

“When Sergeant Currington ignored the Center’s religious exemption and forced Mr. Ashaheed to shave his beard, he violated clearly established law,” wrote Judge Scott M. Matheson, Jr. in the panel’s Aug. 10 opinion.

The Tuesday decision marks a curious trend in Colorado of religious freedom rulings handed down from the 10th Circuit. Ashaheed’s case is the fourth in little over two weeks to address infringements upon the free exercise of religion or religious-based discrimination. A total of 11 appellate judges have sat on panels deciding the cases.

“I see it as a spurt. Sometimes you toss a coin and you get six heads in a row,” said Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment professor at the UCLA School of Law.

But Andy McNulty, one of Ashaheed’s lawyers, called the collection of rulings a “strong statement by the 10th Circuit that the Free Exercise Clause is not something to be tossed away, even in the prison context.”

Ashaheed is a practicing Muslim, and letting his beard grow was a core part of his faith. Allegedly, the Colorado Department of Corrections knew about this ever since 1993, when it documented Ashaheed’s faith in his inmate file while he was serving a prior sentence. That information was reportedly still available to prison personnel when Ashaheed arrived at the Denver intake facility in 2016 to serve a sentence related to parole violations.

Normally, the center’s policy requires inmates to shave their beards at intake, but there is an exception for beards that are a product of sincerely-held religious beliefs.

This time, however, Sgt. Thomas E. Currington allegedly told Ashaheed he had to shave or grow a “full beard” to qualify for the religious exemption. According to Ashaheed, he tried to explain that his beard was for religious purposes, but Currington reportedly said he “didn’t want to hear about it,” threatening Ashaheed with solitary confinement.

Ashaheed subsequently had his beard shaved, which made him feel “humiliated, demoralized and dehumanized.”

He filed a federal complaint alleging a violation of his First Amendment right to the free exercise of his religion, as well as a claim of religious discrimination. A lower court judge last year dismissed both sets of allegations.

U.S. District Court Judge William J. Martínez found Currington should receive qualified immunity, which is a judicial doctrine shielding government employees from liability unless they violate a clearly-established legal right. Generally, a right is clearly established when a prior court decision says it is. The judge determined that Ashaheed had no clear right to maintain his beard, and Currington would not have known that it was a First Amendment violation to require a Muslim man to shave during intake.

To Ashaheed’s argument that Currington permitted those of other faiths to keep their religious items after intake while singling him out, the judge determined that the “artifacts that Plaintiff identifies (bibles, crosses and wedding rings) do not change or potentially cover in part an inmate’s appearance in the same manner as does a beard.”

At oral argument before the 10th Circuit panel, the appellate judges lobbed questions at Currington’s lawyer after he suggested that his client’s action “suggests a simple mistake.”

“Does it matter that Currington allegedly responded that he didn’t wanna hear about it? That he threatened retaliation? Stating that Ashaheed would be thrown into the hole?” quizzed Judge Nancy L. Moritz. “How can we possibly just say, ‘Well, we can look at these statements and we can assume this was just a big mistake’?”

David Shapiro, representing Ashaheed, told the panel that the lower court judge was mistaken to find his client’s beard and the religious items of other inmates were dissimilar.

“It’s not just this abstract comparison of crosses to beards,” he said. “It is that there is a policy on religious exemptions and religious accommodations.”

Ultimately, the panel agreed with Ashaheed that Currington violated clearly-established law, potentially acted out of purposeful discrimination, and should not have received qualified immunity.

“A jury could infer from these allegations that Sergeant Currington acted because Mr. Ashaheed is Muslim,” Matheson wrote. “Sergeant Currington’s refusal to follow the Center’s beard-shaving policy and grant Mr. Ashaheed a religious exemption, when he previously accommodated the religious needs of non-Muslims under the Center’s personal-effects policy, shows that he burdened Mr. Ashaheed’s religion in a discriminatory and non-neutral manner.”

A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Corrections declined to respond to the panel’s decision or say whether Currington still works at the department. The state attorney general’s office is defending Currington.

Ashaheed received support in his appeal from the civil rights organization Muslim Advocates, the Institute for Justice and the libertarian Cato Institute, who each submitted briefs to the 10th Circuit.

Volokh, the law professor, said that it has been settled law for decades that targeting someone for discriminatory treatment because of their religion is unconstitutional, even in the absence of a specific case pertaining to Muslim men’s beards.

“If somebody just screwed up and targeted this person not because of his religion but because he genuinely misunderstood the rule, that wouldn’t be religious discrimination. That would be an error,” he said. “But the jury might not believe that.”

Ashaheed did not immediately respond to a request for comment through his Facebook page. CPR reports that Ashaheed now works with a reentry program for formerly incarcerated individuals, and he is also a member of Denver’s Crime Prevention and Control Commission.

The Tuesday opinion was the latest in a string of recent Colorado cases implicating religious liberty that the 10th Circuit has handed down. On July 26, a panel decided by 2-1 to uphold the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act as constitutional, after a Christian web designer argued the law forced her to violate her religious beliefs and create wedding websites for any couple, including same-sex couples.

Last week, a separate panel reinstated the lawsuit of an atheist who alleged his parole officer in Fort Collins forced him to either participate in a Christian transition program or go to jail. Then, yesterday, another decision dismissed the claims of a Messianic Jewish detainee who sued the Denver Sheriff Department’s chaplain for denying his request for a kosher diet.

The case is Ashaheed v. Currington.