The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has revised the essay questions federal job applicants are invited to answer. The change follows a federal judge’s finding that one of the original prompts likely violated applicants’ First Amendment rights.

On September 11, U.S. District Judge George O’Toole issued a stay order directing agencies to remove the question from all hiring announcements, after finding that its inclusion likely violated job applicants’ First Amendment rights. The question, known as “Question Three,” asked candidates which of the president’s executive orders are most “significant” to them. Critics called it a “loyalty question.”

The judge wrote that the question calls for the applicant’s personal views on a political topic and links that view directly to the duties of the desired job. He cited testimony from a Department of Veterans Affairs employee who said she felt compelled to give an answer contrary to her own views for fear that an honest one would hurt her application.

The case, AFGE v. Kupor, was brought by the American Federation of Government Employees and two other public-sector unions. It challenges one of four essay questions the administration directed agencies to include on all federal job applications at or above the GS-5 level, as part of its May 2025 “merit hiring plan.” Democracy Forward, which represents the plaintiffs, says more than 70,000 federal job announcements have included the question. OPM later clarified that agencies had to include the questions but that candidates were not required to answer them.

The ruling is a stay under the Administrative Procedure Act, not a final decision, and the merits of the case remain undecided. O’Toole said he could not require agencies to reconsider hiring actions that had already occurred while the question was in use. A separate analysis reports that the court declined to bar agencies from considering responses applicants had already provided.

In a message to agencies, OPM told them to stop considering responses to the executive order question for any open vacancy, but said they did not need to reopen past hiring actions or repost announcements that closed by September 25.

A September 18 memo directed agencies to add a replacement question to announcements closing on or after September 26. The new Question Three says applicants will be expected to “professionally and efficiently implement executive direction” and asks them to describe a time they carried out a leadership decision on a strategy or policy that differed from their own recommendation.

The memo also adds a fifth question. Agencies must choose one to three “agency-wide priorities,” drawn from sources such as their strategic plans, and ask applicants how they would help advance them. Each agency must use the same wording across all of its announcements.