US Supreme Court pauses rehiring of fired probationary federal employees
The Supreme Court — for now — sided with the Trump administration regarding probationary federal workers
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday paused a federal judge’s ruling mandating that several federal departments rehire roughly 16,000 federal employees that President Donald Trump’s administration aimed to terminate.
As a result of the decision, the federal government — for now — isn’t required to rehire some of the fired workers as a lawsuit makes it way before a federal judge in California.
However, another injunction instructing 20 agencies to reinstate fired probationary federal employees remains in effect in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court said the plaintiffs — including nonprofit groups and unions — lacked standing to bring the lawsuit.
“The District Court’s injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine non-profit-organization plaintiffs in this case. But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing,” the majority wrote.
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor — who make up a core of the liberal bloc on the court — dissented.
In March, Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the Office of Personnel Management didn’t have the authority to enact firings at agencies and departments that included Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs.
“That is what happened here — en masse,” he wrote at the time.
The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court after the plaintiffs’ request to reinstate the roughly 16,000 probationary employees was allowed.
“Courts do not have license to block federal workplace reforms at the behest of anyone who wishes to retain particular levels of general government services,” US Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court filings.
Since Trump took office for a second term in January, he’s taken aggressive action to cut the federal workforce across the country, with layoffs and firings upending the traditional political order in Washington.
The White House DOGE office, which is closely associated with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has been the Trump administration’s most visible vehicle leading the conservative push to shrink government.
