Federal workers sue in S.F. Over Trump Agriculture Secretary’s ‘Proselytizing’ Emails

Federal workers sue in S.F. Over Trump Agriculture Secretary’s ‘Proselytizing’ Emails

(This article was first published in the San Francisco Chronicle, May 13, 2026)

By Bob Egelko, Staff Writer

May 13, 2026

President Donald Trump’s Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is unconstitutionally pressuring her 100,000 employees to adopt her religious views in a series of messages, like an Easter email urging them to “celebrate the greatest story ever told,” a group of workers charged in a lawsuit Wednesday.

Rollins is “sending increasingly proselytizing communications to the entire USDA workforce, promoting her own preferred brand of Christian beliefs and theology to the captive audience of employees that report to her,” lawyers for the employees contended in a filing in federal court in San Francisco.

The message, they said, is that Rollins “expects the USDA workforce to share the same beliefs as her and favors those who share her brand of Christianity,” while others are “excluded and not welcome.” They asked a federal judge to prohibit all such messages from a government official.

The plaintiffs include the National Association of Federal Employees, a union whose members include more than 19,000 USDA employees, and seven individual employees, including two who work in Vallejo. The suit was filed by Oakland attorney Bryan Schwartz and lawyers from Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the nonprofit advocacy group Democracy Forward Foundation.

USDA spokesperson Michael Abboud told the Chronicle that “while we do not comment on pending litigation, we will keep the plaintiffs in our prayers during this process.”

An unnamed department spokesperson told CNN on April 6 that Rollins was “within her rights to send a message to employees and the public on the Easter holiday. Just like Secretaries of Agriculture and Presidents have in the past.”

Rollins’ messages appear to be consistent with Trump’s policies on religion. He has established a Task Force to Combat Anti-Christian Bias and a Religious Liberty Commission, whose chairman, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, has proposed a federal hotline with a recorded announcement that “there is no separation of church and state.”

Wednesday’s lawsuit said Patrick’s assertion and Rollins’ messages are contrary to the Constitution’s First Amendment, which bars any “establishment of religion” by the government.

“Our nation’s Founders — having learned from the harmful effects of past religious conflicts — adopted the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to safeguard against government promoting any favored religion or imposing its preferred religious practice on its citizens to protect religious freedom for all,” the attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

They noted the first-person language of Rollins’ April 5 email — that on Easter “we celebrate the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind,” a day in which “God has granted each of us victory and a new life.” Among other things, Schwartz said, she did not mention that the Jewish holiday of Passover was being celebrated at the same time.

Similarly, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said, just before Christmas, Rollins posted a video telling her employees that “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.”

Rollins’ messages, the attorneys wrote, “exploit her authority as the head of the agency to proselytize and pressure the USDA workforce to believe in her brand of Christianity.”

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle