Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
The Office of Personnel Management has agencies fire 25,406 probationary workers in under a month, and the firings stick
After Trump’s February 11, 2025 order on workforce reductions, two courts ordered reinstatements. The Supreme Court stayed one, and the district judge later declined to order anyone back.
What happened
On February 13, 2025, two days after Trump’s executive order on workforce reductions, the Office of Personnel Management directed agencies to terminate probationary employees not deemed mission-critical. Agencies fired 25,406 probationers in under a month, a court later found. Departments including Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and the Treasury were among them.
Unions, nonprofits and 19 states plus D.C. sued. Judge William Alsup ruled that OPM had no authority to order other agencies to fire their staff and ordered about 16,000 employees at six departments reinstated. Judge James Bredar ordered reinstatements at about 20 agencies.
On April 8, 2025, the Supreme Court stayed Alsup’s order, holding the nonprofit plaintiffs lacked standing. It did not reach the merits. On September 12, 2025, Alsup ruled OPM’s directive unlawful but declined to order reinstatement, requiring agencies only to correct personnel records and tell employees the firings were not for performance. The government appealed.
Who benefited
The White House and OPM gained the ability to shrink agencies quickly without the reduction-in-force procedures Congress wrote. The DOGE effort that was driving the cuts benefited too. The Supreme Court’s standing ruling made future systemic challenges to mass firings harder to bring.
Who wanted something
Trump ordered the workforce reduction, and OPM, led by acting director Charles Ezell, issued the directive. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency pressed agencies to cut headcount fast. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court that only individual employees, through limited administrative channels, could challenge their own dismissals.
Who lost out
Tens of thousands of probationary employees lost their jobs with little notice. They were left to contest the firings one at a time through the Merit Systems Protection Board, itself under attack. The public lost agency capacity in veterans’ care, food safety, parks, weather and tax collection, and lost a workable way to challenge mass firings in court.
Why it matters
The government carried out a mass firing first and let the courts sort it out later. The Supreme Court’s emergency docket let the firings stand on procedural grounds. Where a lower court found them unlawful, the workers still did not get their jobs back.
Sources Supreme Court of the United States (primary)U.S. District Court, N.D. Cal. (via Justia) (primary)ReutersFederal News Network