![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/president-trump-and-brooke-rollins-2018-559fd1-1000x565.jpg\")
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Executive Office of the President of the United States<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump and Brooke Rollins in 2018. Rollins is currently Trump\u2019s secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n
A union representing more than 19,000 employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is suing the agency. It accuses Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins of violating employees’ First Amendment rights through a campaign of religious coercion.<\/p>\n
The National Federation of Federal Employees filed the lawsuit<\/a>, in conjunction with seven individual USDA employees.<\/p>\n “Plaintiffs \u2013 a group of multifaith and nonreligious USDA employees … are subject to the effects of that coercion, religious sermonizing, and denominational preference,” the complaint reads. “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.”<\/p>\n Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n Rollins is one of two cabinet secretaries from Texas serving in the second Trump administration. In her home state, Christian nationalism has become a central theme<\/a> in Republican primary runoff campaigns ahead of the May 26 election. <\/p>\n The legal complaint, filed Wednesday in a federal court in California, claims the communications reached a new level with an April 5, 2026, email to employees, marking Easter and promoting the secretary’s evangelical Christian theology.<\/p>\n “Today we celebrate the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind,” the email<\/a> began. “From the foot of the Cross on Good Friday to the stone rolled away from the now empty tomb, sin has been destroyed. Jesus has been raised from the dead. And God has granted each of us victory and new life. And where there is life \u2014 risen life\u2014there is hope.”<\/p>\n Rachel Laser is president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, whose attorneys are representing the plaintiffs. She argued Rollins\u2019 actions form part of a pattern on behalf of leading Trump administration officials \u2014 including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a>, now-former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and President Donald Trump himself \u2014 using government channels to promote a particular, evangelical strain of Christianity, in violation of the Establishment Clause<\/a> of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s indeed profoundly un-American,” Laser said. “I want to reiterate that Trump is not Jesus. Agencies are not churches and cabinet secretaries are not government preachers.”<\/p>\n