On Monday, the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to halt a sweeping lower court order requiring six federal agencies to reinstate over 16,000 recently terminated probationary employees immediately.
“DOJ just took to the Supreme Court a single district judge’s order forcing the reinstatement of 16,000 probationary employees,” Chad Mizelle, chief of staff to the Justice Department, posted to X.
The emergency request comes after Senior U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued a preliminary injunction on March 14, concluding that the Office of Personnel Management had “directed all (or at least most) federal agencies to terminate all probationary employees for ‘performance.’”
Alsup found the directive unlawful: “OPM has no authority to hire and fire employees in another agency. Yet that is what happened here — en masse.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Alsup’s order in a split decision on March 17, with Judges Ana de Alba and Barry Silverman denying the administration’s request for an emergency stay. “An administrative stay … would disrupt the status quo and turn it on its head,” the majority wrote. Trump-appointed Judge Bridget Bade dissented, warning the injunction would impose a “substantial administrative burden” on the agencies.
According to the emergency petition, Solicitor General Sarah Harris told the justices that “every day the injunction remains in effect is a day that six executive agencies are effectively under the district court’s receivership.”
President Donald Trump slammed Alsup: “It’s a judge that’s putting himself in the position of the president,” he said earlier this month. “That’s a very dangerous thing for our country.”
The Justice Department argues that the plaintiffs, led by federal employee unions, lack the standing to challenge the firings and that the injunction interferes with the president’s workforce streamlining initiative.
The government has also disputed Alsup’s characterization of the memo, noting that the onus fell on the agencies to terminate probationary employees, not OPM, as the judge previously suggested.
“It is a sad, sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said at the end of a hearing on the union’s request for a preliminary injunction.
Before that March 14 hearing, Alsup ruled on Feb. 27 that the mass firings of probationary workers were likely unlawful. He told OPM to notify certain agencies that it lacked the authority to mandate terminations.
OPM issued revised guidance after the late February decision, telling department leaders they were not required under its previously published memorandum to take “specific performance-based actions” regarding probationary employees.
“Agencies have ultimate decision-making authority over, and responsibility for, such personnel actions,” the revised memo said.
JUDGE REINSTATES THOUSANDS OF FEDERAL WORKERS
The Supreme Court is expected to act soon and could schedule response deadlines as soon as Monday afternoon.
The six affected agencies are the Departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury.
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