On November 7, 2025, a federal judge delivered a forceful rebuke to the Trump administration, ruling that the Department of Education violated the First Amendment by transforming out-of-office emails of furloughed employees into vehicles for partisan blame. The decision, issued by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, comes during a historic government shutdown that has paralyzed Washington since October 1 and left hundreds of thousands of federal employees either furloughed or working without pay.
At the heart of the dispute was a seemingly mundane bureaucratic function—automated email replies. Yet, as the shutdown began, these messages became a new battleground in the nation’s intensifying partisan wars. According to The Hill, the controversy erupted when the Education Department, without employees’ consent, replaced their personalized out-of-office notifications with a statement that pointedly blamed Senate Democrats for obstructing a Republican-backed funding bill. The message 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.”
The lawsuit that followed was filed by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union representing many Department of Education workers. As reported by NPR, union members were not only blindsided by the change but felt their professional identities had been hijacked for political messaging. “This ridiculous ploy by the Trump administration was a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of the workers at the Education Department,” said Rachel Gittleman, president of AFGE Local 252, in a statement. She added that it was “one of the many ways the Department’s leadership has threatened, harassed and demoralized these hardworking public servants in the last 10 months.”
Judge Cooper’s memorandum was unequivocal in its condemnation. “Nonpartisanship is the bedrock of the federal civil service; it ensures that career government employees serve the public, not the politicians,” he wrote, according to The Hill. He continued, “But by commandeering its employees’ e-mail accounts to broadcast partisan messages, the Department chisels away at that foundation.” The judge further emphasized, “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. The Department’s conduct therefore must cease.”
The court’s order was clear: the Department of Education must restore union members’ personalized out-of-office email notices immediately. If technical limitations prevent isolating only union members’ accounts, then the department is required to remove the partisan content from all affected emails. This ruling, while directly impacting union members, sets a precedent for how government agencies must respect constitutional boundaries, even in times of political crisis.
The origins of the dispute were as bureaucratic as they come. On the eve of the shutdown, the department had instructed employees to set up a neutral auto-reply: “We are unable to respond to your request due to a lapse in appropriations for the Department of Education. We will respond to your request when appropriations are enacted. Thank you,” as reported by NPR. But when the shutdown took effect, the department’s leadership overrode those messages, inserting the controversial partisan language instead. Employees were neither consulted nor given notice about this change, and many told NPR they did not write the new message that now appeared under their names.
Even after the court’s ruling, the Education Department showed little sign of backing down. As The Hill noted, when reporters reached out for comment, they received an automated response that again blamed Senate Democrats for the ongoing shutdown. The department’s deputy assistant secretary for communications, Madi Biedermann, defended the message, stating, “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?”
Judge Cooper, however, was not persuaded by such justifications. He noted that the department had “waited until its furloughed employees lost access to their email, then gratuitously changed their out-of-office messages to include yet another partisan message, thereby turning its own workforce into political spokespeople through their official email accounts.” In his words, “The Department may have added insult to injury, but it also overplayed its hand.”
This episode has reignited a broader debate over the boundaries of executive influence within federal agencies and the importance of nonpartisanship in public service. The Hatch Act, a law passed in 1939 and referenced by Judge Cooper, was designed precisely to protect civil servants from political pressure and to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan manner. Kedric Payne, vice president and senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, praised the ruling and underscored its significance: “The Hatch Act and related laws make it clear that partisan politics have no place in a civil servant’s official duties.”
The human cost of the shutdown has only amplified the outrage. Since October 1, hundreds of thousands of federal employees have been furloughed, while others—including air traffic controllers—have continued to work without pay. For many, the addition of politically charged messages to their professional identities was more than an administrative annoyance; it was a humiliation, as they were forced to serve as unwilling messengers in a partisan narrative. As The Washington Post observed, what might once have been a routine formality became another front in Washington’s bitter political battles.
Judge Cooper’s decision delivers more than a mere reprimand to a single agency. It reasserts the enduring relevance of constitutional restraint and the necessity of impartiality in public service. At a moment when trust in government institutions is fraying, the judgment stands as a reminder that the machinery of the state must speak in the language of the people—not the party in power. The ruling signals that, even in times of deep political division, constitutional principles remain a bulwark against the encroachment of partisan interests on public institutions.
As the government shutdown drags on and the human toll mounts, the court’s decision offers a measure of reassurance that some lines—however frequently tested—must not be crossed. The episode serves as a potent reminder: public servants are not billboards for partisan agendas, and constitutional rights do not lapse in the face of political expediency.
