Ex-Washington State football coach Nick Rolovich files appeal over firing
Former Washington State coach Nick Rolovich, who was fired on Oct. 18 for failing to comply with the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, accused athletics director Pat Chun of violating his First Amendment rights and interfering in the university’s process to consider religious exemptions in a 34-page appeal made public by Rolovich’s attorney on Thursday.
The appeal is considered the next necessary step in a formal process before a wrongful termination lawsuit is filed. Rolovich and four assistant coaches were fired with cause for not complying with the mandate, meaning they were not paid the balance of their contracts. Rolovich was in the second year of a deal that paid him an average of $3.2 million annually.
In the appeal, Rolovich claimed that Chun was “openly hostile” toward the coach’s beliefs in several meetings about the vaccine beginning in May, a few months before Gov. Jay Inslee issued the mandate for state employees.
In one of those meetings, Rolovich claims Chun offered to have him meet with a mental health professional and “offered his wife as someone the Coach could talk to because she had been in a couple different religions he referred to as ‘cults.’ ” He also claims that Chun encouraged him to resign on Aug. 19 and called him a “con-man.”
In the appeal, Rolovich paints the picture of a standoff between himself and Washington State officials who repeatedly questioned him about why he would not get vaccinated. Only toward the end of the process did Rolovich, who is Catholic, reveal the basis for his objection to the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Coach Rolovich didn’t feel comfortable talking about his faith,” the appeal states. “His faith is a very personal matter to him and he was uncomfortable talking about his religious beliefs with his supervisor. Coach Rolovich was also uncomfortable because he did not know how Washington State University would react to him sharing his religious opposition to medical research based on aborted fetal tissue, given that WSU professors have in the past publicly defended such research.”
As several news sources have explained, lab-grown fetal cell lines that are genetically related to cells collected from an aborted fetus decades ago have been used to test the safety and effectiveness of several common medicines and vaccines, including the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna. Those vaccines do not contain aborted fetal cells. The Vatican said it is “morally acceptable” for Catholics to take the COVID-19 vaccine, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said the vaccine’s connection to abortion is “very remote.”
Most of Rolovich’s appeal, however, focuses on Washington State’s human resources process. He said he completed his religious exemption application on Sept. 28 and alleges (the supporting documentation wasn’t included) that the university’s Human Resources Services had notified Chun roughly a week later that Rolovich was entitled to a religious exemption and had proposed a list of accommodations and conditions that would allow him to continue working if the exemption were granted.
The appeal claims that the Washington State athletic department responded on Oct. 13 with two documents (copies of which weren’t included), one of which stated that the athletic department could not make the necessary accommodations for Rolovich to do his job safely (including masking, social distancing, etc.) and the other casting doubt on the sincerity of Rolovich’s objections because of previous statements he had made about not being vaccinated.
“The University concluded that Coach Rolovich was entitled to the exemption because his religious beliefs are sincere,” the appeal states. “But then, a week later, the University abandoned its process requiring 'blind' determination and instead allowed Mr. Chun to intervene, improperly permitting him to provide input that questioned Coach Rolovich’s sincerity, thereby poisoning its original determination that the exemption had been approved.”
Rolovich’s attorney went on to detail how he would have been able to perform the duties of his job, including extensive travel and recruiting, with accommodations and argued that Rolovich did not pose any added health risk to others due to his unvaccinated status.
“A denial of an accommodation by Mr. Chun does not constitute ‘just cause’ under the terms of his contract,” the appeal states. “There is no force majeure clause in Coach Rolovich’s contract with WSU, nor is there any provision that contemplates a scenario where he could be terminated because he refused to violate his conscience, bodily integrity, or religious faith by refusing to take a vaccine."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nick Rolovich, ex-Washington State coach, files appeal over firing
