Federal shutdown | Education dept violated employee's first amendment rights with out-of-office emails, judge rules

The Department of Education has been ordered to stop inserting political language into furloughed employees’ out-of-office email messages after a federal judge ruled that the agency violated workers’ First Amendment rights during the government shutdown.

US District Judge Christopher Cooper found that the department compelled speech by editing automatic replies for staff who had been furloughed, shifting them to messages that blamed “Democrat Senators” for blocking a funding bill. The revised messages claimed those lawmakers were preventing passage of a “clean continuing resolution” needed to keep government agencies running.

Read more from us

'Unacceptable' | Air traffic controllers working unpaid as airline CEOs demand end to government shutdown

Cooper wrote that the decision to use employee email accounts to send political messaging compromised the neutrality that is expected of federal civil servants. “Non-partisanship is the bedrock of the federal civil service; it ensures that career government employees serve the public, not the politicians,” he said. “But by commandeering its employees’ e-mail accounts to broadcast partisan messages, the Department chisels away at that foundation.”

Court bars future edits

The ruling permanently bans the agency from adding partisan content to out-of-office messages for employees represented by the American Federation of Government Employees. The union represents more than 2,000 workers at the Department of Education and had challenged the agency’s actions as "compelled speech".