Service & Solidarity Spotlight: Court Blocks Trump Administration’s Job Application Loyalty Question After Unions File Suit

Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

On Friday, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from requiring federal agency job applicants to write an essay about their favorite Trump administration initiative, siding with AFGE, AFSCME and the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), an affiliate of SEIU, in their lawsuit.

Unions filed a complaint after the Office of Personnel Management issued a “merit hiring plan” in May 2025. The court found that this unlawful requirement violates the First Amendment, the Administrative Procedure Act and the Privacy Act.

“This is a major win for public service workers and the communities we serve,” said AFSCME President Patrick Moran. “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.”

“Requiring federal job applicants to answer politically motivated questions goes against the very nature of the nonpartisan civil service, and we are pleased the judge has put an immediate stop to the administration’s loyalty questions. Federal employees should be hired based solely on their ability to perform the job – not their allegiance to any particular administration,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said.

“Today’s ruling makes clear that hiring in the federal workforce cannot be turned into a political loyalty question,” said David J. Holway, national president of NAGE. “Federal jobs are not political rewards, and public service is not conditioned on allegiance to a president.”