The U.S. Department of Education violated employees’ freedom of speech rights when it inserted language to their out-of-office emails blaming “Democrat Senators” for the federal government shutdown, a judge in Washington decided Friday.
Calling the Trump administration’s conduct a “multifront campaign to assign blame for the government shutdown,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper sided with the union representing furloughed Education Department staff in his late Friday opinion, which sued in early October over the partisan language.
“Nonpartisanship is the bedrock of the federal civil service; it ensures that career government employees serve the public, not the politicians. But by commandeering its employees’ e-mail accounts to broadcast partisan messages, the department chisels away at that foundation,” the judge wrote in his 36-page opinion. “Political officials are free to blame whomever they wish for the shutdown, but they cannot use rank-and-file civil servants as their unwilling spokespeople. The First Amendment stands in their way.”
Cooper, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, ordered the department to remove all partisan language from the out-of-office emails, and permanently prohibited the agency from modifying furloughed employees’ away messages, as well as those for employees on administrative leave.
Spokespeople for the Education Department did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
While the initial messages blaming Democratic senators for the shutdown were written in the first person, the department switched the language to third person after the American Federation of Government employees filed the lawsuit last month. But that tweak wasn’t enough to remove Cooper’s concerns that the partisan language violated employees’ First Amendment rights.
“After all, common experience teaches that individual employees typically draft their own out-of-office responses and are not forced to include specific language dictated by their employers,” he wrote.
A majority of the Education Department’s staff has been on furlough since Oct. 1, after the federal fiscal year ended without lawmakers agreeing to legislation that would have kept funding the government. As part of their standard shutdown preparation, the employees set a boilerplate away email explaining that they were furloughed due to the lapse in appropriations.
But after the employees closed their laptops and were to no longer allowed to access their emails, the federal agency unilaterally changed the emails to read: “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.”
Employees who had worked at the department during the last government shutdown in 2018, said the partisan language was unprecedented, and they feared it violated federal laws that prohibit civil servants from engaging in political speech.
The Trump administration claimed the partisan messages were “not compelling the speech of its employees, but rather conveying its own speech.”
But Cooper disagreed.
“When government employees enter public service, they do not sign away their First Amendment rights, and they certainly do not sign up to be a billboard for any given administration’s partisan views,” he said.
“The department does not have a ‘legitimate need’ to insert partisan speech in its employees’ out-of-office messages,” the judge continued.
The changes to the Education Department emails were among several other Trump administration efforts to publicly blame Democrats for the shutdown. Several federal agency website have included partisan messaging since the shutdown began.
Cooper directed the Education Department to file a status report certifying it’s complied with his directive within two business days of Friday’s order.
