A federal court has preliminarily blocked the Trump administration from using its unlawful “loyalty question” on federal civil service job applications while AFSCME’s case moves forward. For now, applicants for civil service positions will no longer have to profess their loyalty to the president. 

Over 70,000 federal job postings have included the loyalty question, effectively compelling applicants to speak about political issues and chilling the speech of many of them. The loyalty question undermines a hiring system that is meant to be merit-based and non-political. 

AFSCME President Patrick Moran called it a major win for public service workers and the communities we serve.  

“These ‘loyalty questions’ are a blatantly illegal attempt to hire partisan cronies who would endanger our communities by putting politics before people, rather than dedicated, qualified public service workers,” said Moran.  

Moran added that a nonpartisan, professional civil service is essential to the health and safety of our communities. 

“AFSCME members will continue to fight the administration’s attacks on the public services we all depend on to thrive,” he said.  

The lawsuit, brought by AFSCME, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), challenges the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) decision to require applicants for non-political federal jobs to write essays about Trump’s executive orders or policy priorities.  

The court ruled that allowing this practice to continue as AFSCME’s case is still being considered would cause irreparable harm to workers applying for merit-based civil service jobs, because the unions are likely to succeed in their argument that the loyalty question violates their members’ First Amendment rights. 

The Boston court’s order, issued last week, prevents OPM from enforcing its directive that agencies include the loyalty question on civil service job applications while the case proceeds.  

The lawsuit argues that the unlawful requirement violates the First Amendment, the Administrative Procedure Act and the Privacy Act by compelling political speech, chilling speech, enabling viewpoint discrimination, and unlawfully collecting information about applicants’ political beliefs. 

Read the decision here.