Updated: This story has been updated to add comments.
Staff furloughed from the U.S. Department of Education say their out-of-office emails blaming Democratic senators for the federal government shutdown were set up without their permission—and they raise concerns about violations of the federal law that prohibits government employees from using their positions for political activities.
The department’s actions also coincide with several federal agencies—though not the Education Department—promoting partisan messages on their websites that have blamed Democrats and the “radical left” for the first government shutdown in nearly seven years, after lawmakers couldn’t come to an agreement to extend funding beyond the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.
Shortly before the shutdown, Education Department employees said the agency sent them a uniform, nonpartisan out-of-office message for all staff to use for automatic email responses while agency operations are mostly on hold. That message explained there was a temporary shutdown, and it directed people to the department’s website for more information. Such messages are standard when shutdowns are on the horizon, staff say.
But then the department changed the messaging unilaterally, without staff’s knowledge or permission, to say:
“Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.”
Some staff said they were unaware their out-of-office messages had been changed. Others, who have been on paid administrative leave for months as part of a broad effort to shed staff, had no access to their email accounts to post the messages.
“This administration took away funding for low-income schools, special education students, and school-based mental health services,” one staffer, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, told Education Week on Thursday. “Now, making every federal worker a partisan pawn for their own ends is again about power, not students.”
Sheria Smith, president of the union that represents the Education Department staff, said the partisan messaging was unprecedented.
“Certainly we have been impacted by government shutdowns before, and we’ve been instructed previously to put out-of-office messages regarding the shutdown, but none of it was ever partisan; none of it ever placed blame on one particular party over the other, which makes sense because our workforce is apolitical,” she said. “These out-of-office messages are yet another example of a disturbing politicizing of what should be independent federal workers.”
Smith said the union is worried its members could be disciplined for violating the Hatch Act, the 1939 law that prohibits federal employees from engaging in some forms of political activity and restricts the use of taxpayer money for partisan actions.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which enforces the Hatch Act and has found violations by high-ranking officials over time in both Republican and Democratic administrations, can seek disciplinary action against an employee who violates the law.
The out-of-office messages appear to be a “back-door violation of the Hatch Act as well as an invasion of employee civil rights,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs expert who lobbies for Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization.
The organization has filed Hatch Act complaints against two agencies, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Small Business Administration, for messages on their homepages blaming the “Radical Left” and “Senate Democrats” for causing the shutdown.
Other departments, meanwhile, had encouraged staff to use language that blamed Democrats in their out-of-office emails, NBC News reported.
The Hatch Act protects employees from partisan political pressure influencing how they do their jobs, and aims to keep taxpayer dollars from funding partisan efforts, Holman said in an email.
“Changing employee out-of-office messages with or without their consent for partisan gain violates these objectives,” he added. “For employers to pressure employees to post partisan messages by asking them to do so violates the Hatch Act. And in secretly changing employee voice messages for partisan purposes, the Education Department is putting words in the mouths of the employees to influence voters for partisan purposes. Either way, this is unacceptable political behavior by those in charge of the Education Department.”
The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. The out-of-office message from the agency’s press office contained similar language to the individual employees’ out-of-office messages blaming Democrats for the shutdown.
