(The Hill) — On Friday, a federal judge determined that the Trump administration breached the First Amendment by dispatching automated emails and messages that attributed the blame for the government shutdown to Democrats.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper concluded that the Department of Education (DOE) is prohibited from forcing federal employees to partake in partisan communications.

This ruling follows actions by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which, alongside the Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group, issued a cease and desist letter and initiated a lawsuit against the Education Department for the political content in staff email replies.

“The foundation of the federal civil service is its nonpartisanship, ensuring that government workers serve the public interest, not political agendas,” Cooper noted in his memorandum. “By using its employees’ email accounts to disseminate partisan messages, the Department erodes this cornerstone.”

Cooper further stated, “Political figures have the liberty to assign blame for the shutdown as they see fit, but they cannot coerce frontline civil servants into being their mouthpieces. The First Amendment acts as a barrier to such actions. Consequently, the Department’s behavior must be halted.”

The ruling states that the DOE “waited until its furloughed employees lost access to their email, then “gratuitously changed their out-of-office messages to include yet another partisan
message, thereby turning its own workforce into political spokespeople through their official email accounts.”

“The Department may have added insult to injury, but it also overplayed its hand,” Cooper wrote.

Cooper also ruled that the DOE must change its automated email messages back to those originally written by the department’s employees.

The Campaign Legal Center’s vice president and senior director of ethics Kedric Payne praised Cooper’s decision and added that the fight will continue “for our nation’s civil service to remain nonpartisan.”

“The Hatch Act and related laws make it clear that partisan politics have no place in a civil servant’s official duties,” Payne said in a statement.

The Hill has reached out to the DOE for comment. An automated response blamed Senate Democrats for blocking the passage of a continuing resolution to fund the government.

“Due to the lapse in appropriations, we are currently in furlough status,” the automated email read. “We will respond to emails once government functions resume.”