Federal workers sue Trump regime over pro-Christian nationalist proselytizing

WASHINGTON—A week before a mass May 17 rally of what one analyst called Donald Trump’s “government-funded Christian nationalism” on the National Mall, a federal workers union sued Trump Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins for Christian proselytizing to USDA’s 110,000 workers.

The National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), a Machinists sector, seven USDA workers, the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Democracy Forward—pro bono lawyers who help unions and individuals oppose Trump’s dictatorial actions—told the U.S. District Court in San Francisco on May 13 that Rollins violated the U.S. Constitution’s 1st Amendment. 

And in a term familiar to unions and workers during organizing drives, Democracy Forward said the federal workers are “a captive audience” for Rollins. They want the judges in San Francisco, who ruled for federal workers in other cases, to issue an injunction to stop her screeds.

NFFE President Randy Erwin says the proselytizing pressure is government-wide, not just at USDA. 

“We’re seeing this blurring of the separation of church and state in many different places,” Erwin told Press Associates Union News Service in an exclusive phone interview. “But for our members, USDA was an outlier. It was so explicit and so obviously illegal” that workers’ non-governmental email “boxes blew up.

“In 25 years, I don’t ever remember this becoming an issue,” he added.

“People have a right to their religious views, but this crossed into—moved over to—someone’s official capacity,” Erwin said of Rollins’s sending the two pro-Christian messages, especially the pre-Easter “He is risen” message, to all 110,000 USDA employees.

“When the Secretary of Agriculture does that, it’s a violation of religious freedom.”

It also has a lasting impact, Erwin warned in the interview. He predicts prospective workers will think twice before seeking a federal job. “If you have to be part of a religious club to be hired or promoted, it hurts” the goal of having “a non-partisan civil service.”

In announcing the suit, Erwin added workers tell him they just “want to do our jobs without having to fend off proselytizing and preaching.’ That’s a basic American freedom, not something we should have to go to court to secure.”

The workers “and NFFE members feel the secretary is pressuring them to share in her religious beliefs. They feel excluded and unwelcome, and they fear the negative consequences of not sharing the secretary’s religion or expressing their own different beliefs in the workplace,” the suit says. 

Despite the fear of retaliation by Rollins, they’re suing anyway, “to vindicate their constitutional right tobe free from the government imposition of religion, and to stop the secretary from further pressuring and intimidating them–and other USDA employees who may be afraid to come forward,” it adds.

“We work for the federal government, not a church,” said physical science technician Ethan Roberts of Peoria, Ill. “I just want to go to work and make my country better. I shouldn’t have to suffer through sermons and other religious messages forced upon me by the head of a federal agency.

“When the secretary sends an email, I have to read it. And when those emails are telling me what to believe, they make me feel unwelcome in an agency I’ve dedicated ten years to.”

The 1st Amendment mandates “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and subsequent rulings have extended that ban to the rest of the federal government, states, and local governments.

Rollins breaks that ban with her postings promoting the “Christian” line. The latest Rollins e-mail proclaimed, just before Easter, “Our faith that Jesus has been raised from the dead.” The prior e-mail, with a video, was sent on December 23.

NFFE, which represents 19,000 USDA workers, and its allies call both messages coercion. Erwin said Rollins’s pre-Easter message triggered the lawsuit. Other unions have yet to join the suit. 

“The Constitution’s founders built a wall of separation between church and state,” their lawsuit opens. “The Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment is rooted in the founders’ concerns about the religious persecution and political strife that arose when government promoted and favored some religions over others or forced religious beliefs on its citizens. 

“To build a country where religious freedom thrives for all, and to prevent religion from corrupting government and government from corrupting religion, the founders called for the separation of church and state. 

“The founders’ experiences taught them that in the hands of government, what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce…a state-created orthodoxy puts at grave risk that freedom of belief and conscience which are the sole assurance religious faith is real, not imposed.”

But though Rollins, like all government workers, from GOP President Donald Trump on down, swore an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution,” her proselytizing violates that vow, the suit says. 

Last December, Rollins e-mailed a “Merry Christmas from Secretary Rollins” video to all the USDA workers. “The spirit of generosity flows from the very first Christmas when God gave us the greatest gift possible, the gift of his Son and our Savior Jesus Christ, who came to free us from our sins and open the door to eternal life. This is the reason for the season,” she preached. 

Then Rollins sent out what the lawsuit calls her “Easter Sermon” on April 5. 

“Team USDA, Happy Easter—He is risen indeed!” Rollins preached. “Today we celebrate the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind. 

“From the foot of the Cross on Good Friday to the stone rolled away from the now empty tomb, sin has been destroyed,” Rollins exulted. “Jesus has been raised from the dead. And God has granted each of us victory and new life. And where there is life—risen life—there is hope.” 

“No matter the very real trials and hardships we face, fear and sin and death do not get the last word. Because on Easter morning, ‘Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took Earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.’” 

“Now that is reason to rejoice! And so, like the very first disciples to encounter our risen Lord in the Upper Room almost 2,000 years ago, this Easter let us too be alive with hope, full of Paschal joy, and confident in the mission each of us has been called for.” The orators on the Mall spoke similarly.

Speakers included House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Catholic Bishop Robert Barron of Rochester-Winona, Minn., retired Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Liberty University Chancellor Jonathan Falwell, and Orthodox New York Rabbi Meir Soloveichik. The speakers’ list was heavily evangelical. No Democrats were invited. Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell, Jonathan’s father, is one of the nation’s most influential and politicized evangelical universities.

Johnson prayed against “sinister ideologies” which see history “through the lens of our sins, rather than seeing God’s blessings,” Reuters reported. “We remember that your mighty hand has been upon our nation since the very beginning,” Johnson said.

Trump appeared in a pre-recorded video, reading from a passage from Second Chronicles. His War Secretary, Pete Hegseth, also via video. invoked an apocryphal painting of George Washington praying at Valley Forge. “Let us pray for our nation on bended knee, and let us ask our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as Washington did on that momentous day,” Hegseth said.

The Trump regime hosted and paid for the event as part of its “celebration” of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

Most, but not all, of the founders were white male Protestants from mainline churches. Those churches’ representatives were not invited to Trump’s 9-hour religious celebration. Nor were Buddhists, Mormons, Muslims, Eastern Orthodox leaders, African-American church leaders, and representatives of the quarter of U.S. adults who call themselves unaffiliated. 

The taxpayer-paid white evangelical event on the Mall prompted Bishop William Barber II and pastor and author Jonathan Wilson Hargrove to host a documentary, Bad Faith 2026: Christian Nationalism In Power, followed by a panel discussion. Both can be found here. Barber is co-executive director of the New Poor People’s Campaign and helps lead its parent organization, Repairers of the Breach. 

Both are strong supporters of workers’ rights. Barber is a longtime critic of the religiosity of white nationalist preachers who link their Christian “brand” with the capitalist elite and the GOP. 

Erwin, in the phone interview, did not comment on the rally, saying he didn’t know its details. But, he concluded: “We’re a country of free citizens, allowed to practice whatever religious allegiance we please. A Cabinet Secretary should be able to make that distinction.”

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!