A federal judge agreed last month that an incarcerated Native American woman may pursue her claim of First Amendment retaliation against a prison official who allegedly interfered with her religious exercise.

Yvonne Peterson resided at Buena Vista Correctional Facility for a portion of 2025. Since age 8, she practiced her Native American religion, including through sweat lodge and pipe ceremonies and use of prayer beads.

Representing herself, Peterson sued Benjamin Thiel, the program coordinator at Buena Vista who was in charge of calling the sweat lodge and keeping the required materials in his office. From late August through December 2025, Peterson alleged that Thiel interfered with the exercise of her religion by withholding materials, refusing to call the sweat lodge, and reducing the frequency of ceremonies against prison policy.

“Thiel refused to allow us to do a sweat lodge ceremony for 10 weeks in a row,” Peterson wrote. “He did not want to take the time out of his day to do these things for us, he told us he ‘had a lot of work to do,’ he was angry and tried to rush us.”

Peterson filed internal grievances with the prison about Thiel, whom he “almost always mentions” during their interactions. One lieutenant allegedly told Peterson that Thiel withheld religious items because she filed a grievance. Although the prison granted one of her grievances about Thiel, Peterson had been transferred to another facility by then.

Peterson sued Thiel for violating her First Amendment right to religious freedom and for retaliating against her for exercising her First Amendment right to file a grievance.

Thiel sought to dismiss only Peterson’s retaliation claim, noting that Peterson was required to show that his alleged actions would deter a person “of ordinary firmness” from continuing to engage in constitutionally protected activity.

“In total, Peterson alleges that she filed at least six separate grievances and submitted two kites (notes) about Thiel over approximately three months,” wrote the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. “These allegations suggest that Thiel’s handling of sweat lodge and personal faith property did not in any way chill Peterson’s vigorous participation in the grievance process.”

Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak disagreed. In a July 30 order, he wrote that case law has established that a person of “ordinary firmness” would feel deterred under circumstances highly similar to what Peterson alleged. Further, it is clear that prison officials may not retaliate against someone for filing grievances.

“And given that BVCF permits the type of religious activity allegedly taken away from Plaintiff due to her filing of grievances,” Varholak wrote, “Plaintiff has plausibly alleged that the religious activity she had taken away was reasonable even in the prison context.”

The case is Peterson v. Thiel.