Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

General Discussion

W_HAMILTON

(9,868 posts)

3. If you read the article, you would have answered your own question.

Reply to MichMan (Reply #2)

Sun Nov 9, 2025, 12:47 PM

Sunday

Cooper ordered the department to restore union members' personalized out-of-office email notices immediately. If that could not be done, he warned, then the department would be required to remove the partisan language from all employees' accounts, union member or not.

The EXTREMELY PARTISAN out-of-office language the Trump administration forced these employees to use was what was found to be violating their First Amendment rights.

Overruling their nonpartisan out-of-office emails and replacing it with EXTREMELY PARTISAN ones meant that not only was the government putting words in their mouth, they were causing these everyday employees to run afoul of the Hatch Act by which they are bound.

Edit history

Please sign in to view edit histories.

Recommendations

1 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

RandomNumbers

4 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

NPR: Judge says Education Dept. partisan out-of-office emails violated First Amendment [View all] RandomNumbers Sunday OP

Meh. He checked off the First Amendment early on, added a few more since. nt eppur_se_muova Sunday #1

Based on this ruling, are government employees permitted to say anything they want in their work emails? MichMan Sunday #2

If you read the article, you would have answered your own question. W_HAMILTON Sunday #3

It would appear to be a violation of the Hatch Act, not a First Amendment issue like the headline states MichMan Sunday #4