Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Unions file new suit alleging use of federal employees’ emails to send partisan messages violates First Amendment, (Oct 6, 2025)
Organizations Mentioned:American Federation of Government Employees | Public Citizen Litigation Group | Secretary of Education | U.S. Department of Education
By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.
The suit alleges that the Department of Education replaced employees’ out-of-office email messages with partisan political language regarding the shutdown.
In a lawsuit filed on Friday in D.C. federal court, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) alleges that the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, sued in her official capacity, violated the First Amendment rights of federal agency employees. The union alleges that the Trump Administration is “unlawfully compelling agencies and civil servants across the federal government to engage in political rhetoric to serve the interests of the governing party.” It seeks declaratory and injunctive relief.
Replaced out-of-office messages. Specifically, the union alleges that, “[w]ithout giving notice to their employees, let alone obtaining their consent, the Department of Education has replaced employees’ out-of-office email messages with partisan language that blames ‘Democrat Senators’ for the shutdown.”
First Amendment implications. These “efforts to co-opt the voices of rank-and-file employees in the nonpartisan civil service to take part in political messaging” and its actions “[f]orcing civil servants to speak on behalf of the political leadership’s partisan agenda” violates the federal employees’ First Amendment rights, the suit contends.
The complaint also includes screen shots from multiple government agency websites, to support the argument that there is a “government-wide use of power to tilt the public debate.”
AFGE is represented by Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group in the matter.
“Government workers have a First Amendment right not to be conscripted as political mouthpieces against their will,” said Cormac Early, Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney.
The case is No. 1:25-cv-03553.
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