Federal employees seek injunction to stop USDA secretary from sending religious messages to staff News
Billy Hathorn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Federal employees seek injunction to stop USDA secretary from sending religious messages to staff

A group of federal employees and their union on Thursday has requested a federal court to temporarily bar US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins from sending official communications that “proselytize, promote, or favor any particular religion” to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) employees while their constitutional challenge proceeds.

The motion for a preliminary injunction was filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California and is part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) and seven USDA employees. The plaintiffs allege that Rollins violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by repeatedly using her official position to send explicitly Christian messages to approximately 100,000 USDA employees. They also argue that the communications violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

According to the complaint, Rollins’ holiday messages became increasingly religious after she took office in February 2025. While earlier emails included general references to God, the plaintiffs argue later messages, particularly a Christmas 2025 email and an Easter 2026 message, promoted Christian beliefs instead of merely recognizing religious holidays.

The lawsuit focuses on an Easter email sent on April 5, 2026, in which Rollins described Easter as “the greatest story ever told” and “the foundation of our faith”, declaring that Jesus had defeated sin and death, and encouraging employees to rejoice in the resurrection. 

The plaintiffs contend that these communications crossed the constitutional line between acknowledging a religious holiday and government endorsement of religion. They argue that USDA employees constitute a “captive audience” because official emails from the Secretary contain important workplace announcements, which leaves employees with little practical ability to ignore them. They further alleged that the emails made employees of diverse religious and non-religious backgrounds feel excluded or pressured to conceal their beliefs. 

Additionally, the plaintiffs allege that Rollins had infused Christian theological framing into secular American holidays such as Memorial Day and Independence Day by quoting Bible passages in company-wide emails. She has remained defiant in the face of the lawsuit, stating on her X account that it was “just another opportunity to remind everyone: He is Risen.”

The captive audience argument draws on a doctrine that the Supreme Court has applied mainly outside the workplace where the government is prohibited from coercing a captive audience into participating in or endorsing religious exercise. Federal workplace guidance issued under the 1997 Clinton administration previously determined that the Establishment Clause bars the government, including its employees, from acting in a way that would lead a reasonable observer to conclude that the government is endorsing or favoring a particular religion. That same guidance also protects personal religious expression by federal employees as them exercising their right to free speech. 

The lawsuit ultimately seeks declarations that the challenged conduct violates the First Amendment and the APA, a permanent injunction preventing similar communications in the future, and attorneys’ fees and litigation costs.

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