A complaint has been filed against Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins after she sent an overtly religious email to around 100,000 federal workers.
The top Donald Trump ally sent an email over the Easter weekend across the USDA’s 4,500 offices, making explicit references to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“Happy Easter—He is Risen indeed!” the Sunday message from Rollins 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.”
The email from Rollins prompted internal complaints that it violated the constitutional separation of church and state, as well as a formal complaint to the Office of Special Counsel, reported CNN.
Ethan Roberts, the president of a local union for federal employees and also an employee at the USDA, submitted the complaint over what he said amounted to a “pro-Christianity sermon.”
As well as potentially violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment, Roberts told CNN that Rollins making reference to “sin” and “Hell” made him “feel as if that was my fate if I did not treat Easter as holy as Secretary Rollins does.”
The complaint called for the retraction of the Easter email and that no more deeply religious messages be sent from the department.
In a statement, a USDA spokesperson said: “The Secretary is within her rights to send a message to employees and the public on the Easter holiday, just as Secretaries of Agriculture and presidents have in the past.”
Multiple USDA employees also complained to The Washington Post about how upset they were after receiving the email from Rollins.
“Using government resources to promote one religion contradicts what I learned about how America was founded on separation of church and state,” one employee said. “Even though many of my coworkers were also celebrating Passover, the email didn’t address any other religious traditions.”
Another said that Rollins was “forcing religion down everybody’s throat,” even though many within the department are not Christian.
A 15-year veteran of the department said they were “floored” by the email, adding that they had never seen “that overtly of a religious email in all my years of government service.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the United States Department of Agriculture for comment.
