A federal workers union has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for altering U.S. Department of Education employees’ out-of-office email messages to include partisan language about a government shutdown without their consent. The American Federation of Government Employees, represented by Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group, says the government crossed a line by turning routine autoresponders into political billboards.
In the complaint, the groups accused the administration of going to “unprecedented lengths” to use government infrastructure to “shift the public debate in its favor.” They argue this is not only improper but illegal, because the government is not supposed to conscript civil servants into a message war. “This whole-of-government approach to partisan messaging is unprecedented, and it makes a mockery of statutory prohibitions like the Hatch Act,” the complaint states. “Especially pernicious, however, are the Administration’s efforts to co-opt the voices of rank-and-file employees in the nonpartisan civil service to take part in political messaging.”
The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night. The lawsuit followed reports from furloughed staff who discovered that their out-of-office replies had been changed to blame Democrats for the shutdown. On Thursday, five employees who spoke with NBC News and provided copies of their autoresponses said they were surprised to see wording that did not match what they had drafted. All of them are career civil servants, not political appointees, which is why the unions say this feels coercive.
Advocates for the workers framed it as a classic free speech problem. “The Trump-Vance administration is losing the blame game for the shutdown, so they’re using every tactic to try to fool the American people, including taking advantage of furloughed civil servants,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement. “Posting messages without consent to broadcast messages on behalf of a partisan agenda is a blatant violation of First Amendment rights,” she added. “Even for an administration that has repeatedly demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the Constitution and rule of law, this is beyond outrageous. The court must act immediately to stop this flagrant unlawfulness.”
The Education Department pushed back on the criticism. On Thursday, Madi Biedermann, the deputy assistant secretary for communications for the Department of Education, said of the out-of-office responses: “The email reminds those who reach out to Department of Education employees that we cannot respond because Senate Democrats are refusing to vote for a clean CR and fund the government. Where’s the lie?”
Union leaders say employees are being punished twice over. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement Friday that workers’ First Amendment rights were violated after “suffering financially by going without a salary due to this politically motivated government shutdown.” He said the goal of the lawsuit is to stop the practice and prevent it from spreading to other agencies.
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This is not the only legal fight tied to the shutdown. Earlier this week, AFGE and another union representing state and local employees filed a separate case challenging possible mass firings floated by the White House. “The cynical use of federal employees as a pawn in Congressional deliberations should be declared unlawful and enjoined by this Court,” the complaint said.
There is also a looming clash over layoffs during a shutdown. Officials argue the president can approve “reductions in force,” and the budget office backed that view. “Issuing RIFs is an excepted activity to fulfill the President’s constitutional authority to supervise and control the Executive Branch, similar to conducting foreign policy,” said Rachel Cauley, a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget.