Celebrate Court Blocking Trump's Loyalty Question for Jobs

A federal court has blocked the Trump administration from requiring applicants for most federal civil service jobs to answer a question about which of the president’s executive orders or policy initiatives are personally significant to them and how they would help advance those policies if hired.

The question appeared on more than 70,000 federal job postings. Unions representing federal workers challenged it in court, arguing that requiring applicants to disclose personal views about political policies compelled political speech and threatened the tradition of a merit-based, nonpartisan civil service.

Judge George O’Toole agreed that the unions were likely to succeed on their First Amendment claim. He noted that the question asks applicants for their personal views on a political subject and directly connects those views to the federal position they are seeking. One union member testified that she feared answering honestly about her views could hurt her application.

Celebrate the court’s decision to protect federal job applicants from being required to answer Trump's political question and for preserving merit-based, nonpartisan hiring while the case moves forward.