The Loyalty Question and DoDā€™s Sealed Hiring Boards: What Federal Applicants Should Know
The loyalty question on federal job applications — the essay asking how you would help advance the President’s executive orders — now sits alongside a second change most applicants never see. At the Department of Defense, four strategic hiring committees decide who gets hired, and they meet behind closed doors. Whether the two are connected is a question nobody outside the Pentagon will answer.
Two Moves, Five Months Apart
In May 2025, the Merit Hiring Plan added essay questions to federal applications, including one asking how the applicant would help advance the President’s executive orders and policy priorities in the role. That October, an executive order created strategic hiring committees — senior panels that must approve hires before they happen. DoD runs four of them.
What the Committees Will and Will Not Say
The panels are not transparent. The Air Force committee rules on hiring requests every two to four weeks, but would not tell Federal News Network how many requests it handles or which positions are exempt. The Navy did not respond at all. A process that cannot be audited cannot be measured against the merit rules it is supposed to follow — and that is the practical problem, separate from anyone’s motives.
Whether the Essay Question Is Really Optional
OPM says the essays are optional and are not scored. Union court filings describe something else: roughly 48,000 postings carried the question, and applicants report they could not actually skip it. That dispute is in front of a federal judge now, with the unions framing the requirement as compelled speech. There is no ruling yet, and it is worth being precise about that — this is contested, not decided.
What the Merit Rules Require
Federal hiring runs on merit system principles. Under 5 U.S.C. § 2301, recruitment and selection are supposed to proceed through fair and open competition, with selection based on relative ability, knowledge, and skills. Under 5 U.S.C. § 2302, discriminating against an applicant on the basis of political affiliation is a prohibited personnel practice. Those protections reach applicants, not only people already on the rolls.
If You Applied and Heard Nothing
- Keep the record. Save the announcement number, the closing date, the questions you were asked, the answers you gave, and every status notice you received.
- Silence is not an appealable decision, but it is worth documenting. If a selection later looks like it turned on political affiliation, the contemporaneous record is your evidence.
- Know which door to use. Prohibited personnel practice complaints go to the Office of Special Counsel. Discrimination claims based on a protected category run through the EEO process, which requires contact with an EEO counselor within 45 days under 29 C.F.R. § 1614.105(a)(1).
A Word to Applicants Who Answered
If you answered the question to get a job you were qualified for, that is not weakness — that is a person doing what the form in front of them required. And if the silence since has you wondering what happened to your application, that is not paranoia. It is a reasonable response to a process that has stopped explaining itself.
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Legal Disclaimer: This content is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Federal employment situations are fact-specific and time-sensitive. Please consult a qualified federal employment attorney about your specific situation.