Education Department must stop email responses blaming shutdown on 'Democrat Senators'

WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge ruled Friday that the Trump administration violated the First Amendment rights of furloughed federal employees by using their automated out-of-office emails to blame congressional Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper granted summary judgment to the American Federation of Government Employees and ordered the Department of Education to cease its use of the employees’ autoreply as “the First Amendment stands in their way.”

The ruling comes on the 38th day of the government shutdown, which became the longest lapse in appropriations in U.S. history on Nov. 5. The previous record holder came under President Donald Trump’s first term, lasting 35 days between Dec. 22, 2018 and Jan. 25, 2019.

Cooper, a Barack Obama appointee, found that department officials instructed employees to set up an automatic out-of-office email before the shutdown began Oct. 1, and provided a factual, nonpartisan template they could use.

However, after employees lost access to their email accounts, the department changed the messages without the employees’ knowledge or consent, blaming the shutdown on “Democrat Senators” who were blocking passage of a “clean” continuing resolution that would fund the government.

“Nonpartisanship is the bedrock of the federal civil service; it ensures that career government employees serve the public, not politicians,” Cooper wrote. “But by commandeering its employees’ email accounts to broadcast partisan messages, the department chisels away at that foundation.”

After the shutdown began, similarly partisan messages appeared on several government websites, such as the Department of Justice, the Department Housing and Urban Development, the Department of State and the Department of Agriculture, among others. The messages have raised concerns that the messages violate the Hatch Act, which bars executive branch employees from participating in certain political activities.

The Education Department has a nonpartisan message atop its website, simply stating that “information on this website may not be monitored or maintained” and warning inquiry responses may be delayed during the shutdown.

Cooper rejected the Justice Department’s argument that the messages were government, not personal, speech and part of the employees’ official duties and therefore were beyond the First Amendment’s scope.

“This case sits at the seldom-traversed intersection of two First Amendment doctrines: the prohibition on compelled speech and the free speech rights of public employees,” Cooper wrote, noting the “unprecedented circumstances” of the case. “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.”

In a footnote, Cooper suggested that the IT employees who created the banner messages on agency websites referring to the shutdown as “Democrat-led” would not have the same compelled-speech claims as the Education Department employees.

“After all, there is little risk that a person visiting the website would attribute the banner’s speech to the employee who altered the website’s code,” Cooper wrote.

The union sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Oct. 3, two days after the shutdown began, arguing that the Department of Education had commandeered employees’ emails without notice or consent, forcing them to “involuntarily parrot” the president’s talking points.

“Thank you for contacting me. On Sept. 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution,” the emails say. “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.”

Cormac Early, of Public Citizen and representing the employee union, welcomed Cooper’s ruling in a statement on Friday.

“Today’s ruling vindicates the foundational principle that career federal civil servants work for the people, not for partisan interest,” Early said in a statement. “President Trump is free to blame Democrats or anyone else for the government shutdown, but he cannot fore rank-and-file civil servants to serve as his unwilling mouthpieces in doing so."

The White House declined to respond to a request for comment, instead directing Courthouse News to the Education Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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