A federal judge in Boston has ordered the Trump administration to stop demanding that everyday Americans applying for civil service jobs write essays proving their devotion to the president's agenda, siding with labor unions who called the practice an illegal "loyalty test" baked into the hiring process.

U.S. District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. issued the preliminary injunction on Friday, September 11, in a suit brought by three of the government's largest employee unions against the Office of Personnel Management's Merit Hiring Plan, which since May 2025 has required applicants for tens of thousands of federal jobs to answer an essay prompt asking how they would "advance the President's Executive Orders and policy initiatives" and to name one that was personally significant to them.

What the judge found

O'Toole ruled the question amounted to compelled political speech that had nothing to do with an applicant's ability to do the job, writing that plaintiffs were "likely to succeed in showing that there is no legitimate governmental interest in inquiring into the political beliefs of applicants to federal civil service vacancies." According to Government Executive's account of the ruling, the judge noted that while OPM's own guidance warned hiring officials against using the answers as "an ideological litmus test," that caveat never appeared anywhere in the question applicants actually saw.

"FEDERAL JOBS ARE NOT POLITICAL REWARDS, AND PUBLIC SERVICE IS NOT CONDITIONED ON ALLEGIANCE TO A PRESIDENT."

The order, reported by U.S. News and other outlets, bars agencies from including the question on new job postings while the case proceeds, though the judge stopped short of forbidding agencies from considering answers applicants have already submitted.

The essay question had appeared on more than 70,000 federal job listings since it was rolled out under OPM's Merit Hiring Plan, itself issued to implement President Trump's January 2025 executive order directing agencies to hire "only highly skilled Americans dedicated to the furtherance of American ideals, values, and interests."

The lawsuit, American Federation of Government Employees et al. v. Office of Personnel Management, was filed by AFGE, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), which argued the requirement violated the First Amendment, the Civil Service Reform Act's ban on political-affiliation discrimination in hiring, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

Union leaders welcomed the ruling. In a statement carried by AFSCME, President Patrick Moran said the questions were "a blatantly illegal attempt to hire partisan cronies who would endanger our communities by putting politics before people," while AFGE National President Everett Kelley said federal employees "should be hired based solely on their ability to perform the job — not their allegiance to any particular administration."

OPM has not publicly detailed its next legal move. The injunction keeps the essay question off applications only while litigation continues — O'Toole has not yet ruled on the merits of the case, and the administration retains the option to appeal the stay to the First Circuit or revise the question to survive scrutiny. Federal hiring officials are expected to update job postings to drop the prompt in the coming days, while the broader fight over whether the Merit Hiring Plan can survive in any form heads toward further hearings.