Judge Orders ED Remove Partisan Out-of-Office Messages

"A federal judge sided with the American Federation of Government Employees in its challenge to the Trump administration sending partisan, automated out-of-office messages from Department of Education employee emails, reported Friday. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the agency to remove the messages, which blamed Democratic senators who are "blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate" for the shutdown, from all unionized employees' emails. The responses violated the employees' First Amendment rights, Cooper ruled."

""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," Cooper wrote in his opinion. The decision also permanently blocks the department from including partisan speech in out-of-office messages of furloughed and laid-off employees."

A federal judge ruled that partisan automated out-of-office messages sent from Department of Education employee emails violated employees' First Amendment rights and ordered their removal. The messages blamed Democratic senators for blocking passage of H.R. 5371 and linked them to the government shutdown. The court permanently barred the department from including partisan speech in out-of-office messages for furloughed and laid-off employees. The judge instructed the agency to remove the partisan language from all employees' emails if necessary for technological reasons. Department officials initially sent a standard out-of-office message on Oct. 1 and later discovered the message had been changed without their consent.

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