A federal judge has ruled against the Trump administration over its inclusion of “partisan” language in Education Department employees’ automated emails during the government shutdown, ordering the agency to immediately halt the practice.
The ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Government Employees last month, which claimed the administration violated furloughed employees’ First Amendment rights by changing their out-of-office emails without their consent. Those changes included pinning the blame for the shutdown on “Democrat Senators” who are “blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations.”
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, sided with the federal workers’ union on Friday, agreeing that the alterations to the emails went against the First Amendment.
“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,” Cooper 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. The First Amendment stands in their way. The Department’s conduct therefore must cease.”
The ruling only applies to unionized Education Department employees who are a part of AFGE, though Cooper said he would expand the order to all affected workers in the agency if it is “technologically impossible” to “immediately remove partisan messaging” from only AFGE members’ email accounts.
Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group, who represented AFGE in its lawsuit, hailed Cooper’s ruling after it came down.
“This ruling is a major victory for the constitutional rights of the people who serve our country,” Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman said. 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.”
OVER 5,000 FLIGHTS DELAYED OR CANCELED ON SECOND DAY OF FAA CUTS AS DUFFY THREATENS MORE REDUCTIONS
AFGE President Everett Kelly also said the order “makes clear that even this administration is not above the law.”
The government shutdown has now hit its 39th day, with no end in sight. Since the start of lapse in funding on Oct. 1, hundreds of thousands of government employees have been furloughed, while others, including air traffic controllers, are working without pay.
