DOJ Backs Fired Coach in COVID Faith Fight

Interior view of an empty courtroom with wooden benches and a judges bench

When the federal government’s own lawyers say a public university “trampled” a coach’s faith during the COVID years, it raises fresh questions about who was really calling the shots in America.

Story Snapshot

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is backing ex–Washington State University coach Nick Rolovich, who says he was fired in 2021 for refusing the COVID shot on sincere Catholic grounds.^[3]^[7]
A federal judge earlier sided with the university, saying Rolovich’s objections were mostly secular, but DOJ now tells an appeals court the record shows a real religious conflict.^[1]^[2]^[3]
DOJ’s brief argues Washington State University ignored federal law that requires reasonable religious accommodation at work unless it creates real hardship.^[3]
The fight highlights how COVID rules, elite pressure, and vague “sincerity” tests allowed powerful institutions to crush conscience rights for ordinary workers.

How a Vaccine Mandate Cost a Coach His Job

In fall 2021, Washington State University adopted a strict COVID-19 vaccine rule for in‑person staff and students, matching a statewide mandate that warned noncompliant workers could lose their jobs. Head football coach Nick Rolovich, a Catholic, asked for a religious exemption because he believed taking the shot would make him complicit in abortion, due to the use of fetal cell lines in connection with vaccine development or testing.^[4]^[7] The university denied his request and fired him that October for refusing the vaccine.^[1]

Rolovich sued Washington State University in 2022, seeking millions in damages for wrongful termination and religious discrimination.^[4]^[9] He argued that the school broke its contract and violated federal protections that bar employers from punishing workers over sincere religious beliefs.^[4] In early 2025, a federal judge in Washington rejected his claims on summary judgment, siding with the university before any jury trial. The judge said the evidence showed his objections were mainly secular, not religious, and that keeping him unvaccinated would have burdened the university.^[1]^[2]

Why the Trump DOJ Jumped Into the Case

In June 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division filed a rare friend‑of‑the‑court brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, openly disagreeing with the lower court.^[3]^[5] The brief states that “Nicholas Rolovich had sincere religious reasons for refusing to take the COVID‑19 vaccine” and that the record contains “voluminous evidence” of his Catholic beliefs and how they clashed with the vaccine.^[3]^[4] Federal lawyers told the appeals judges that Washington State University, as a public employer, had a duty under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to reasonably accommodate those beliefs unless doing so would cause undue hardship.^[3]^[7]

The Justice Department argues the district judge “improperly second‑guessed” Rolovich’s faith by focusing only on his secular statements and downplaying his religious ones.^[4] According to reporting on the brief, even the university’s own blind‑review committee concluded his beliefs were sincere, but senior officials overrode that finding and moved to fire him anyway.^[5] DOJ says this sequence shows the university skipped the required interactive process and treated a religious objector more harshly than policy demanded, which is exactly what federal law is supposed to prevent.^[3]^[5]

What This Fight Reveals About Power and Conscience

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act says employers must try to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs unless doing so creates real, concrete hardship to the business, such as serious safety risks or major costs. Legal guidance during the pandemic told employers to assume sincerity in most cases and to distinguish true religious claims from mere personal or political objections. Many workers, however, felt that universities, hospitals, and corporations used “sincerity” as a vague excuse to weed out people who raised any questions about the mandates at all, especially if media or donors were watching.^[9]

Washington State University insists it followed the rules and that letting its high‑profile coach remain unvaccinated would have strained operations and public health.^[1] The district court accepted that view, reinforcing what many see as a pattern: when powerful institutions say “trust us,” judges often defer, and individual employees lose. DOJ’s intervention flips that script, at least for now, by telling an appeals court that the law protects conscience even when it is unpopular, and that universities do not get a free pass because they invoke “science” or public pressure.^[3]^[4]^[7]

For many Americans on both the right and the left, this case taps into a deeper frustration: rules crafted and enforced by distant elites during COVID often crushed ordinary people while those in charge faced no real consequences. Critics say the same mindset that drove rushed mandates, censorship of debate, and blanket shutdowns is still alive in higher education and government, where image and control matter more than individual rights. However the Ninth Circuit rules, the Rolovich case is a reminder that the fight over who counts in this system is far from over.