AFGE v. Department of Education

When the government shut down on October 1, 2025, most civilian federal workers were placed in furlough status and unable to continue working. Furloughed employees were instructed set up automatic out-of-office email responses. At the Department of Education, however, employees later discovered that the agency had changed their out-of-office emails to include language blaming “Democrat Senators” for the shutdown. When some employees attempted to take out the partisan language, the Department reinserted it, forcing messages sent in their names to contain the partisan statement.

On behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees, Public Citizen Litigation Group, together with Democracy Forward, filed suit on October 3, 2025, against the Department of Education. The complaint seeks a judicial declaration that the Department violated its employees’ First Amendment rights by engaging in partisan political speech in their names and against their will, and an injunction requiring the Department to reverse the illegal edits to employees’ out-of-office messages. In response to the lawsuit, the agency revised the autoreply, changing it from first to third person but continuing to include the partisan political language. We then moved for summary on an expedited schedule.

The court granted our motion and ordered the Department to remove the partisan language from employees’ auto replies. The court wrote: “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. 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.”