The largest federal worker union in the nation is suing the Education Department after the agency replaced employees’ out-of-office email messages with partisan language blaming Senate Democrats for the government shutdown.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) sent a cease and desist letter and filed a lawsuit on Oct. 3 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The union is arguing that the Education Department’s changes to the email messages violate employees’ First Amendment rights.
AFGE is represented by Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group in the matter.
“Federal employees already are suffering financially by going without a salary due to this politically motivated government shutdown. Now the administration has directly and deliberately violated the First Amendment rights of furloughed workers at the Department of Education by replacing their out-of-office email messages with partisan political language without the employees’ consent,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.
The lawsuit explains that due to the government shutdown, furloughed employees at the Department of Education set up out-of-office replies to automatically respond to incoming emails.
The department provided a sample email reply for employees to use that was nonpartisan. However, on Oct. 1, many employees noticed that the language in their out-of-office messages associated with their government email accounts had been changed.
The out-of-office messages were modified to say: “Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations, I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.”
MeriTalk reached out to the department’s press office on Monday for a comment and received an automatic email reply with the same language above.
Madi Biedermann, the deputy assistant secretary for communications, did respond to MeriTalk, saying, “The email reminds those who reach out to Department of Education employees that we cannot respond because Senate Democrats are refusing to vote for a clean CR and fund the government. Where’s the lie?”
AFGE noted that the changes were made to employees’ automated email replies without giving notice to the employees and without obtaining consent. The union also stressed that the modified emails are written in the first person, “as if the individual employee is the person conveying the message.”
“The Trump-Vance administration is losing the blame game for the shutdown, so they’re using every tactic to try to fool the American people, including taking advantage of furloughed civil servants,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. “Posting messages without consent to broadcast messages on behalf of a partisan agenda is a blatant violation of First Amendment rights.”
“It is profoundly offensive for the government to commandeer federal employees’ voices for partisan purposes,” added Cormac Early, Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney. “Government workers have a First Amendment right not to be conscripted as political mouthpieces against their will.”