Easter Wish Sparks ‘Christian Nationalism’ Lawsuit at USDA

An Easter greeting from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins represents an “outbreak of Christian nationalism,” according to litigants suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Seven employees at the agency, along with the National Federation of Federal Employees, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, based in San Francisco. The National Federation of Federal Employees represents 110,000 federal employees.

They took umbrage at an Easter email to all department employees from Rollins that said, “Happy Easter – He is Risen indeed! Today we celebrate the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind.” They claim the greeting violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

The plaintiffs are being represented by Democracy Forward, an organization chaired by former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias, as well as Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

A USDA spokesperson told the Daily Signal, “While we do not comment on pending litigation, we will keep the plaintiffs in our prayers during this process.”

The complaint says the plaintiffs are a group of “multifaith and nonreligious USDA employees.”

“Secretary Rollins’s practice and 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 says. “It is exactly the sort of government-sponsored religious coercion, religious sermonizing, and denominational preference that the Establishment Clause prohibits.”

The complaint filed in court doesn’t use the often undefined phrase “Christian nationalism,” but litigants and representatives eagerly sounded the alarm elsewhere.

“Every agency feels like it’s the epicenter for a new outbreak of Christian Nationalism,” said National Federation of Federal Employees National President Randy Erwin in a public statement. “We just want to do our jobs without having to fend off proselytizing and preaching.”

Similarly, in a public statement on the case, Democracy Forward CEO Skye Perryman seemed equally agitated.

“Christian nationalism is a divisive perversion of faith that is about who gets to properly belong in the country and who doesn’t,” she said.