A federal workers’ union filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education on Friday for changing the Department’s employees’ automated emails to include partisan language about the government shutdown. 

The American Federation of Government Employees, which is represented by the Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group, sent a cease-and-desist letter and filed a lawsuit against the DOE over the political language included in its emails. 

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“Federal employees already are suffering financially by going without a salary due to this politically motivated government shutdown,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. 

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Kelley said that the administration violated the First Amendment rights of furloughed Department of Energy employees at DOE by replacing their out-of-office emails without their consent.

“Our union will not stand silent while President Trump and his political puppets blatantly violate the law in yet another assault on federal workers’ rights,” Kelley said. 

AFGE, the largest federal workers union, is accusing the Trump administration of using “unprecedented lengths” to use government agencies to “shift the public debate in its favor.”

“This whole-of-government approach to partisan messaging is unprecedented, and it makes a mockery of statutory prohibitions like the Hatch Act,” the complaint states. “Especially pernicious, however, are the Administration’s efforts to co-opt the voices of rank-and-file employees in the nonpartisan civil service to take part in political messaging.”

The Hatch Act was passed in 1939 and prohibits federal employees from engaging in certain political activities to ensure a nonpartisan federal workforce.

The lawsuit comes after some furloughed employees found that their automated emails were changed to include language blaming Democrats for the shutdown. 

The complaint said that DOE initially provided employees with “factual” and  “nonpartisan” language to include in their out-of-office emails. 

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“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,” the complaint said the emails changed to. 

As the complaint outlines, the emails are part of the Trump administration’s broader messaging to blame Democrats for the government shutdown. 

The websites of various government agencies alert viewers that its websites are not being updated during the shutdown and blame Democrats in these notifications on the government pages. 

The Department of State refers to the shutdown as “Democrat-led,” the Department of Justice also said “Democrats shut down the government,” and the Department of Agriculture refers to it as “the Radical Left Democrat shutdown.” 

The House Oversight Committee ranking member, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), sent a letter on Thursday demanding an investigation into the use of government websites in promoting Republicans’ messaging about the shutdown. 

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement that the administration is “taking advantage of furloughed civil servants” because they are losing the “blame game” for the shutdown.

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“Even for an administration that has repeatedly demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the Constitution and rule of law, this is beyond outrageous. The court must act immediately to stop this flagrant unlawfulness,” Perryman said. 

The White House deferred the Washington Examiner to the Department of Education, and the Washington Examiner contacted the Department of Education for comment.