A federal judge told the Department of Education to remove “partisan” language blaming “Democrat Senators” for the government shutdown from furloughed federal workers’ out-of-office email messages.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper sided with a federal employees’ union that alleged its members’ auto-reply emails were changed without their permission to insert the partisan message.

Cooper said the move violated the First Amendment because the government had essentially forced staffers to make a political statement against their will, a concept known as “compelled speech.”