Washington, DC — The Trump White House has retreated from a directive requiring most federal civilian job applicants to write an essay on how they would “help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities” following a legal complaint from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Instead, applicants will be instructed that their “responses are not required and will not be scored.”

On May 29, 2025, the White House and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) jointly announced that “each job application graded GS-05 or above” must respond to “four short, free-response essay questions,” including one asking how they “would help implement” the Trump agenda if hired. On June 11, PEER filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) that the proposed essays were a blatantly illegal attempt to impose a political loyalty test in violation of statutory requirements that personnel decisions must be based solely “on merit.”

On June 23^rd, OPM issued “Additional Guidance” to agency hiring and human resource officials that while “agencies are encouraged to use these questions for competitive merit promotion hiring (both internal and external), it is not a requirement.” In addition, the memo states —

• “Answers to these questions are not scored or rated. Agencies should treat responses to these questions in the same way they would treat the submission of a cover letter”;
• Essay answers “must not be used as a means of determining whether the candidate fulfills the qualifications of a position”; and
• “The questions also must not be used to impose an ideological litmus test on candidates. If an applicant does not answer the questions along with their application, they will not be disqualified or screened out.”

“These changes may transform OPM’s use of the essays from an illegal screening tactic to a silly waste of time,” commented PEER General Counsel Joanna Citron Day, an attorney formerly with the U.S. Departments of Justice and Interior as well as the Environmental Protection Agency. “Asking federal job applicants how they feel about Trump has no place in the merit system. Such questions are highly inappropriate.”

OPM’s response signals its realization that its original plan was illegal. OPM’s Additional Guidance cautions that “Hiring managers and agency leaders or designees must only use the questions in accordance with Merit System Principles and should additionally be mindful of Prohibited Personnel Practices.” That warning reflected the essence of the PEER complaint.

OPM supplemental guidance was not publicly posted. PEER learned of its existence only because it was relayed to OSC and OSC provided a link to the supplemental guidance as part of its response to PEER’s complaint. In a June 30^th letter to PEER, Senior Counsel Charles Baldis wrote that “OSC has concluded that OPM’s Additional Guidance resolves the concerns raised in your letter…”

“The Trump White House apparently cannot abide by the idea of a non-partisan, merit-based civil service,” Day added, pointing to Trump’s plan to strip senior officials with policy-making responsibilities of civil service status and convert them to at-will employees, a plan PEER is challenging in court. “While we are pleased that adult supervision diluted this ill-named ‘Merit Hiring Plan,’ its authors should be fired.”

That original plan was issued under the signatures of Vince Haley, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell.

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Read OPM’s new “Additional Guidance”

See the PEER complaint

Compare the original OPM Merit Hiring Plan

Look at OSC response to PEER

Revisit Trump plan to convert senior civil servants to at-will employees