AFN first warned readers in a Feb. 16 story the Office of Personnel Management had opened a public comment period for a proposed rule change to its hiring practices. The deadline to comment came last week, April 3, and it’s unlikely the human resources arm of the federal government will back down despite public criticism over its plan.
As required by law, OPM filed for the rule change on the Federal Register for what it calls “personnel vetting investigative and adjudicative processes for determining suitability and fitness” for a federal job.
In more simpler terms, a current federal rule disqualifies a job applicant for trying to overthrow the government – basically participating in a coup – but the new rule expands that one sentence with several more rules that are being described by critics as vague, Orwellian-sounding double-speak. One new rule states you will be disqualified from a federal job if you commit “[a]cts of force, violence, intimidation, or coercion with the purpose of denying others the free exercise of their rights under the U.S. Constitution or any state constitution.”
It has not gone unnoticed by conservatives that the Biden administration considers abortion a constitutional right, so your Facebook post celebrating the overturning of Roe v Wade could be used to reject your application for a rural mail carrier or a park ranger because you don't believe abortion is a constitutional right.
"You are supposed to be able to get hired into the federal government,” Heritage Foundation attorney Han von Spakovsky told AFN in February, “no matter what your views are, for example, on social issues or what political party you might happen to support when it comes to candidates."
Mike Hill of Project 21 tells AFN he agrees with many others who believe the federal government plans to use the new rules to discriminate against political and religious views.
“And my problem with that,” he says, “it is that it directly goes against the First Amendment of our Constitution which allows freedom of expression."
It saddens him to watch his own government plan to discriminate, he adds, because he remembers the oath he took to defend the U.S. Constitution when he joined the U.S. Air Force.
Project 21 was among many right-leaning organizations that fired off letters to the OPM demanding it drop the new rules.
Back in the February story, von Spakovsky predicted the federal government will ignore the critics and enact the rules, but he predicts lawsuits will force OPM to drop its plans.
