Without notice or consent, the Department of Education replaced furloughed employees’ automatic out-of-office email replies with messages casting blame for the shutdown — written in the first person, as if from the employees themselves. Some workers who attempted to restore neutral messages found that their accounts were automatically changed again to include the partisan text.

According to the complaint, this manipulation implies government-compelled speech, thereby violating the First Amendment’s core protection against being compelled to express political opinions. 

On October 3, 2025, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, represented by Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group.

AFGE represents more than 820,000 federal civilian employees, including over 2,000 at the Department of Education. The complaint names as defendants the U.S. Department of Education and Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education, in her official capacity

The lawsuit challenges the administration’s use of civil servants’ email accounts to disseminate partisan political propaganda, describing it as part of a broader “whole-of-government” effort to shift blame for the shutdown through agency websites, internal emails, and now even employees’ personal professional identities.

The complaint asks the court to:

• Declare unlawful and enjoin the Department of Education’s modification of employee out-of-office messages to include partisan political language
• Issue preliminary and permanent injunctions barring similar compelled political speech in the future
• Protect federal workers’ First Amendment rights to remain free from forced participation in partisan messaging campaigns

The case is American Federation of Government Employees v. U.S. Department of Education et al.