Education Department can’t use furloughed employees’ out-of-office emails to blame shutdown on Democrats, judge rules

The Education Department violated its furloughed employees’ First Amendment rights when it modified their out-of-office emails to blame the ongoing government shutdown on congressional Democrats, a federal judge ruled on Nov. 7. 

District Judge Christopher R. Cooper, an Obama appointee, ordered the department to remove partisan language from the messages for Education employees who are members of the American Federation of Government Employees, which brought the lawsuit. 

“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,” he wrote. “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.”

When the funding lapse began on Oct. 1, Chase Forrester, Education’s deputy chief of staff for operations, changed the out-of-office messages for furloughed staffers without notice to the following: 

“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.”

On Oct. 6, in response to a cease-and-desist letter from AFGE, Education officials again modified the email message to be in third, rather than first, person. But it retained the language criticizing Democrats. 

“The Department employee you have contacted is currently in furlough status. 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. The employee you have contacted will respond to emails once government functions resume.”

The Trump administration argued that out-of-office messages are government, rather than personal, speech because they fall within the employees’ official duties, but Cooper was not persuaded. 

“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 wrote. 

The government also contended that jurisdiction for this matter falls with agencies that handle federal employee disputes like the Office of Special Counsel, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Each of these agencies is mostly closed due to the shutdown. 

“This ruling is a major victory for the constitutional rights of the people who serve our country,” Skye Perryman — president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a national legal organization that represented AFGE — said in a statement. “No administration — of any party — can commandeer public servants’ identities and force them to push partisan propaganda. Today’s decision makes it clear that civil servants are not a political tool, and it reinforces a fundamental principle: our federal workforce serves the public, not political agendas.”

Democratic lawmakers and some good government groups have also argued that messages on several agencies’ websites blaming the shutdown on congressional Democrats run afoul of the Hatch Act, which restricts the political activities of federal employees.

The Education Department, which has already halved its workforce, has sent reduction-in-force notices to 465 employees since the start of the shutdown. These layoffs, however, have been paused by a court order and would be reversed by the bipartisan Senate agreement to restart appropriations.