Recalibrating Qualified Immunity: How Tanzin v. Tanvir, Taylor v. Riojas, and McCoy v. Alamu Signal the Supreme Court’s Discomfort with the Doctrine of Qualified Immunity
In December 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued its most important decision on qualified immunity since Harlow v. Fitzgerald, and the issue in the case did not even involve the doctrine. In the Court’s unanimous opinion in Tanzin v. Tanvir, which dealt with the interpretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Justice Thomas explicitly distanced the Court from the very type of policy reasoning used to create qualified immunity. He also embraced the availability of damages claims against government officials as historically justified and often necessary to vindicate individual rights and to check the government’s power. The Court’s decision in Tanvir—alongside those in Taylor v. Riojas and McCoy v. Alamu—offers the strongest signal in decades that the Court is ready to recalibrate its qualified immunity jurisprudence. While it is not time to celebrate the demise of qualified immunity just yet, this Article will discuss how the Court’s disposition of those cases reveals the Court is reconsidering both the foundations and applications of qualified immunity.
Related Cases

Task-Force Immunity and Accountability
Can a local police offifcer launder her lies and deceit through a state-federal task force to hide behind absolute federal immunity? IJ doesn’t think so, but with the help of the federal government, St. Paul…

Louisiana Inmate Held 525 Days Past His Release Seeks Justice
Percy Taylor was kept in a Louisiana prison 525 days past his release date. He is not alone in being held beyond his sentence in a Louisiana detention facility. In January 2023, the U.S. Department…

Immunity and Accountability | Private Property
Innocent small business owner fights for compensation after shop destroyed by SWAT team
For thirty years, Carlos Pena ran a print shop in North Hollywood. His world was turned upside down, however, in August 2022, when a fugitive forced his way into Carlos’s shop and barricaded himself inside…