Judge rules WSU justified in firing Rolovich
WSU fired football coach over his COVID-19 vaccine refusal in 2021
A federal judge ruled Monday that Washington State University was justified in firing former head football coach Nick Rolovich for failing to comply with the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The decision from Judge Thomas Rice of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington comes three years after Rolovich was let go midway through the 2021 season. At the time, state employees were mandated to be vaccinated against coronavirus, a requirement later rescinded by the state.
For months, Rolovich sought a religious exemption from the requirement — based on what the second-year coach called his “devout” Catholic faith. His request was denied following a blind review by a two-person panel.
Rolovich, who was the highest-earning state employee at the time with an annual salary of $3.2 million, then filed a lawsuit against the university. The lawsuit was set to go to trial in December, before both Rolovich and the university submitted requests for Rice to make a decision.
Rice found the evidence and arguments provided by both sides did not support Rolovich’s claim of objecting to the vaccination on religious grounds, according to court records.
“(Rolovich) frequently expressed secular concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine to friends, family members and coworkers,” Rice wrote. “In the thousands of pages of discovery, Plaintiff does not invoke a religious objection to the vaccine. This alone is a basis for denying Plaintiff’s claimed religious objection.”
Rice also agreed with the university’s argument that it could not reasonably accommodate Rolovich’s claimed religious views without experiencing undue hardships in the process, including increased travel costs, an increased risk of spreading COVID-19 to others, harm to recruitment and fundraising efforts, and damage to WSU’s reputation.
There was “overwhelming evidence” Rolovich’s refusal to vaccinate would cause the university undue hardship, Rice wrote.
Rolovich had a 5-6 record at WSU during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, with the former greatly truncated by the pandemic. He was hired as a senior offensive assistant at the University of California last month after spending three years away from college football.
