Federal Court Blocks Trump’s Loyalty Test for Civil Service Applicants

Over 70,000 federal job postings. One essay question. And a woman so frightened of telling the truth that she swore it out in a court declaration rather than risk it on an application form.

The question, inserted into civil service applications by Trump’s Office of Personnel Management, asked applicants to explain how they would “help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities” in the role they were seeking. Identify one or two executive orders significant to you, it said, and describe how you would implement them if hired. Not whether you could do the job. Not whether you had the skills. Whether you would serve the man.

United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts blocked the question on Friday, finding that the plaintiffs’ claims under the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act were likely to succeed. The question’s plain language, O’Toole wrote, “calls for the applicant’s personal views on a political topic, and directly links that personal view to the duties of the desired civil service job.” Continuing to use it, the court found, would cause “irreparable harm” to workers applying for government jobs.

This is what a loyalty oath looks like in 2025. No flag pin, no raised hand. Just a box on a form that forces you to prove your devotion before you can even get an interview.

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The question flowed from one of Trump’s first executive orders of his second term, titled “Reforming the Federal Hiring Process and Restoring Merit to Government Service.” The irony is not subtle. An order bearing the word “merit” in its title directed OPM to build a hiring plan that screens for ideological conformity. The civil service was built to be nonpartisan for a reason. It exists so that a public health researcher, a forest ranger, a VA nurse, or a Social Security claims examiner can do their work regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. Trump’s loyalty question would have replaced that principle with a single test: will you serve the agenda, or will you be screened out?

Three unions brought the case. AFSCME, the American Federation of Government Employees, and the National Association of Government Employees, represented by Democracy Forward. Patrick Moran, AFSCME’s president, called the questions what they 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.” Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national president, said requiring applicants to answer politically motivated questions “goes against the very nature of the nonpartisan civil service.” Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward noted that for more than a century, civil servants have been hired on merit, not allegiance.

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The AFGE member who filed the sworn declaration said she “was afraid” that an honest answer about her views on Trump’s executive orders would “hurt her application.” That fear is the mechanism. That fear is the point. The question was designed to make people choose between their conscience and their livelihood. The court said no.

O’Toole did deny one piece of the unions’ request. He declined to block the government from incorporating answers applicants had already submitted into hiring decisions. That gap matters. People who already answered the question under duress remain exposed, and the administration has those responses in hand. A court can stop a question going forward. It cannot un-ring the bell for everyone who already felt compelled to answer.

This ruling is a necessary win, not a final one. The structural assault on the civil service is not a single question on a single form. It is a coordinated effort to dismantle the professional workforce that makes government function for working people, and replace it with apparatchiks vetted for their willingness to carry out whatever the president demands. The court drew a line. Now the labor movement, the public, and every institution that depends on a nonpartisan workforce must hold that line. Organize. File. Sue. Show up. The question is off the form. The fight is not over.