University of Steubenville is a Catholic school and is fighting the birth control mandate in the new law.

FOX News reports.

Catholic university to file appeal in fight against ObamaCare mandate

The head of an Ohio Roman Catholic university has promised to appeal a federal judge’s decision denying its lawsuit challenging a provision of ObamaCare mandating employer-provided birth control.

“We will not stop fighting this unjust mandate, and we are in this for the long haul,” Father Terence Henry, the president of Franciscan University of Steubenville, said in a statement released Friday.

Franciscan University and an association of Michigan Roman Catholic dioceses sued last year, saying the mandate violates religious freedom by requiring a Catholic entity to comply with the rule.

That portion of the federal health care law came under fire from religious groups that object to the use of contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. In response to the criticism, the Obama administration has been trying to soften the mandate to accommodate religious groups, such as shifting the requirement from the employers to health insurers themselves.

The Justice Department told the court the school and dioceses are protected from the mandate’s requirements until at least 2014. It also said the lawsuit wasn’t timely because changes were already being made to the regulations to meet the groups’ concerns.

U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley sided with the government, saying the groups couldn’t prove they would ever likely suffer the harm they allege. He noted that 15 other federal courts have already ruled similar lawsuits weren’t timely and most of those 15 decisions determined the groups filing the lawsuits lacked jurisdiction.