Officials at President Donald Trump’s Department of Education violated the First Amendment rights of furloughed federal workers by “commandeering” their email accounts to “broadcast partisan messages,” according to a federal judge.
The ruling follows a lawsuit accusing the agency of illegally taking control of employees’ emails to send automatic out-of-office replies that blamed Democratic members of Congress for the government shutdown without their consent.
The messages followed a wave of partisan attacks from Trump administration websites that explicitly blamed Democratic officials and the “radical left” for the federal shutdown, which have drawn several complaints alleging violations of federal ethics laws.
“Nonpartisanship is the bedrock of the federal civil service; it ensures that career government employees serve the public, not the politicians,” District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote Friday.
“But by commandeering its employees’ e-mail accounts to broadcast partisan messages, the Department chisels away at that foundation,” he added. “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.”
His order permanently blocks the Education Department from touching workers’ email accounts to send out similar partisan messages.
The ruling, which applies only to Education Department employees, follows complaints from government watchdogs and furloughed workers from several agencies who were surprised to learn their email accounts were automatically replying to messages with language that echoed the president’s.
“[I’m] so pissed … We as career government employees need to be neutral when carrying out our jobs,” one Education Department employee told ABC News last month. “This is such bull****.”
The Trump administration’s use of government resources to spread its messaging “was an unprecedented violation of the First Amendment, and the court’s ruling makes clear that even this administration is not above the law,” according to Everett Kelley, president of American Federation of Government Employees, nation’s largest federal worker union, which sued the administration over the messages.
The emails stated that the workers were on “furlough status” because “unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage” of a temporary funding bill that “has led to a lapse in appropriations.”
“The employee you have contacted will respond to emails once government functions resume,” the emails said.
That language was also echoed on banners and pop-up messages on the websites of the Department of Justice, State Department, the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Agriculture, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Small Business Administration, among others.
Watchdog groups argue that the statements defy ethics laws that prohibit political attacks and campaigning from inside federal facilities — which Trump and administration officials have continued to do since entering office without facing any consequences.
The White House has previously argued that officials from Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations “repeatedly assigned partisan blame on Republicans in official fact sheets, press releases and statements.”
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees have been furloughed since the government shutdown started October 1, marking the longest-ever shutdown in U.S. history.
Essential federal workers, including air traffic controllers and aviation employees, are required to show up to work without pay during the funding lapse. They received their first $0 paychecks this month.
