Supreme Court blocks order to reinstate federal probationary employees

The Supreme Court stepped in to stop a lower court’s decision that would have required the government to rehire thousands of federal probationary workers who had been fired as part of the Trump administration’s plan to shrink the federal workforce. This ruling came from two different lawsuits—one in California and one in Maryland—both of which claimed the mass firings were illegal.

As reported by AP News, in the California case, a group of labor unions and nonprofit organizations argued that the firings broke federal law. U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who President Clinton appointed, agreed with them. He ordered six federal agencies, the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury, to bring back around 16,000 probationary workers.

Judge Alsup ruled that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and its acting director had wrongly pushed for the firings without following proper legal steps. He also pointed out cases where employees were fired for supposedly doing a bad job, even though they had recently gotten good performance reviews. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals supported Judge Alsup’s decision before the Supreme Court got involved.

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A similar lawsuit in Maryland led to another order affecting the same six agencies, plus a few others, but this one only applied to 19 states and Washington, D.C., which had joined the case. The Justice Department appealed both rulings. The Trump administration argued that the agencies (not OPM) had decided to fire these workers and believed the firings were justified.

They also said the lower court rulings went too far by interfering with the executive branch’s power to manage its own employees. The Supreme Court, in a brief unsigned order, agreed with the administration and blocked the rehiring of the workers while the legal process continues. The Court didn’t rule on all the claims in the California case but noted that some of the people suing didn’t have the legal right to bring the case in the first place.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision and said they would have let the lower court orders stand, per USA Today. The lawsuits claimed that at least 24,000 probationary workers had been fired since the start of the Trump administration, though the government hasn’t confirmed that number.

These firings were part of a larger effort by the administration to cut back the size of the federal government. The Supreme Court’s ruling fits a pattern of recent decisions where the Court has sided with the Trump administration against lower courts that tried to block its policies.