A federal judge in San Francisco has ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration acted unlawfully when it directed federal agencies to fire tens of thousands of probationary employees earlier this year.
But in a decision underscoring the reach of recent U.S. Supreme Court interventions, the judge stopped short of ordering their reinstatement.
According to Reuters, U.S. District Judge William Alsup, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, reaffirmed his earlier finding that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) overstepped in February when it ordered agencies to terminate roughly 25,000 probationary employees en masse. These workers—generally those with less than a year of service, though some were longtime federal employees in newly assigned roles—were dismissed under what unions described as a politically driven directive masquerading as performance-based termination.
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Unions, nonprofits, and the state of Washington sued to block the action, calling it one of the most sweeping purges of federal personnel in recent memory.
Ordinarily, Alsup wrote, the remedy would be straightforward: “set aside OPM’s unlawful directive and unwind its consequences, returning the parties to the ex ante status quo, and as a consequence, probationers to their posts.”
But he noted that the Supreme Court’s recent moves effectively tied his hands. In April, the high court paused an earlier injunction from Alsup that had required six agencies to reinstate about 17,000 workers while litigation proceeded. That intervention sent a strong signal, Alsup wrote, that the Court would likely overrule lower court efforts to directly reinstate federal employees dismissed under executive authority.
“Too much had happened since the Supreme Court’s April decision,” he added, pointing out that many of the dismissed workers had since found new jobs while the administration continued to restructure the federal workforce.
Limited Relief
Instead, Alsup crafted a narrower remedy. He ordered 19 agencies—including the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Interior, and Treasury—to correct employees’ personnel files by November 14. The agencies must update records to show that the mass terminations were not due to legitimate performance failures and are prohibited from enforcing any similar OPM directives in the future.
That order, Alsup said, still addresses the harm caused by what he described as OPM’s “pretextual termination ‘for performance.’”
The ruling drew swift reaction from federal employee unions. Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the decision “makes clear that thousands of probationary workers were wrongfully fired, exposes the sham record the government relied upon, and requires the government to tell the wrongly terminated employees that OPM’s reasoning for firing them was false.”
Kelley emphasized, however, that the absence of reinstatement leaves many workers permanently displaced despite the finding of illegality.
The case underscores the ongoing tension between executive authority and judicial oversight in federal employment matters. Traditionally, probationary employees enjoy fewer protections than tenured federal staff, but mass terminations on this scale are unprecedented. Trump’s administration has argued that the firings were part of an efficiency push, while critics see them as an ideological reshaping of the civil service.
The Supreme Court’s intervention earlier this year reflects its broader trend of limiting judicial remedies that intrude on executive personnel decisions. The Court effectively constrained lower courts from undoing executive branch employment actions, even if deemed unlawful, by stepping in on the so-called “shadow docket” to halt reinstatements.
The litigation is not over, but Alsup’s ruling sets the terms going forward. Agencies must repair records to clear workers’ reputations, but absent a shift from the Supreme Court, reinstatement appears unlikely. The result leaves thousands of careers disrupted, with employees validated in principle but denied the practical relief of getting their jobs back.
For unions, the ruling provides vindication but also fuels frustration. For the Trump administration, it offers partial cover—its directive deemed unlawful, but its broader workforce restructuring largely preserved.
The November 14 deadline now looms as the key date when agencies must formally correct the files of those affected, a step that could help workers secure future employment but falls short of undoing the largest federal workforce shakeup in decades.