USDA Employees File Lawsuit Alleging ‘Religious Coercion’ in Staff Emails

A new lawsuit accuses Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins of illegally “promoting her own preferred brand of Christian beliefs and theology” in emails sent to USDA employees.

As ABC News reported, the suit accuses Rollins of “proselytizing federal employees by frequently invoking Jesus Christ in work emails,” including a Thanksgiving message expressing “gratitude towards a loving God” and an Easter email describing the resurrection of Jesus as “the greatest story ever told.”

Filed on May 13 by the National Federation of Federal Employees and a group of seven USDA employees, the claim says that, in sending such emails, Rollins has violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The lawsuit cites the 1943 case of W. Va. State Bd. Of Educ. v. Barnette, which noted that, “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.”

During her roughly 15 months as head of USDA, however, Rollins “has done just that,” the suit alleges, saying that she has “adopted a practice of sending increasingly proselytizing communications to the entire USDA workforce.”

Rollins’ policy “of subjecting agency employees to proselytizing messages conveys the expectation that USDA employees share in the Secretary’s religious beliefs, even when doing so would betray an employee’s own beliefs,” the lawsuit read.

“It is exactly the sort of government-sponsored religious coercion, religious sermonizing, and denominational preference that the Establishment Clause prohibits.”