February 28, 2025 Story by: Publisher
A federal judge in California has ruled that the Office of Personnel Management must rescind memos directing agencies to carry out mass terminations of probationary employees, stating that the agency exceeded its legal authority.
Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern California District on Thursday, said the mass firings were likely unlawful and ordered that the Office of Personnel Management halt the action.
In a San Francisco court, Alsup said the Office of Personnel Management acted out of bounds by telling other agencies – including the Education Department, the Small Business Administration, and the Energy Department – to fire employees.
“OPM does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire or fire any employees, but its own,” Alsup said.
OPM is also required to inform other federal agencies that it has no power to issue such a directive.
While the ruling does not prevent individual agencies from terminating probationary employees at their discretion, the judge emphasized that OPM cannot mandate such actions.
The office under the Trump administration had recently issued a memo to the Defense Department and other federal agencies to fire the new probationary employees.
“We have asked that you separate probationary employees that you have not identified as mission-critical no later than the end of the day Monday, 2/17,” the memo reads.
The judge listed the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National Science Foundation among the agencies that are barred from engaging in layoffs ordered by OPM.
Alsup said he couldn’t order the Department of Defense to pause its plan to fire thousands of civilian employees on Friday because the agency isn’t a party to the case. But he ordered OPM to communicate his ruling to the DOD.
“Probationary employees are the lifeblood of our government, that’s how we renew ourselves,” Alsup said at the hearing in his San Francisco courtroom. “They are contributing to our country, they want to contribute to our country.”
