Judge says Education Dept. partisan out-of-office emails violated First Amendment

"When government employees enter public service, they do not sign away their First Amendment rights,"

"and they certainly do not sign up to be a billboard for any given administration's partisan views."

"We are unable to respond to your request due to a lapse in appropriations for the Department of Education. We will respond to your request when appropriations are enacted. Thank you."

"This ridiculous ploy by the Trump administration was a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of the workers at the Education Department,"

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper found that replacing personalized out-of-office email notices with partisan language blaming Democrats violated Education Department employees' First Amendment rights. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) brought the lawsuit on behalf of affected workers. Cooper ordered restoration of union members' personalized notices immediately or, if restoration proved impossible, removal of the partisan language from all employee accounts. Prior to the shutdown, employees were instructed to create neutral out-of-office messages and were given a boilerplate notice explaining a lapse in appropriations. A department deputy chief of staff later overrode staff messages to insert partisan blame, prompting union protests.

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