Among the campaign promises made by Donald Trump in the run up to the 2024 presidential election was to radically restructure the federal workforce, in part, by taking away civil service protections from thousands of workers. It did not take Trump long to make good on that promise. On January 20, 2025, shortly after being sworn into office, one of his first acts as president was to issue an executive order titled “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce,” (2025 Executive Order) that attempts to strip civil service and due process protections from a large swath of federal employees. 

In essence, the 2025 Executive Order reinstates Trump’s previous Executive Order 13957, originally issued in October 2020 (and subsequently rescinded by President Biden in 2021), which created Schedule F, defined as a new employment designation for federal workers who were to be reclassified as exempt from competitive service, meaning they would not be subject to the same merit system principles or hiring and firing protections as other federal jobs.  The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) concluded previously that the Schedule F created by Executive Order 13957 “was designed to be broad and numerically unlimited.”  According to reporting by Axios, Schedule F could adversely impact as many as 50,000 federal workers.

Mere hours after the 2025 Executive Order was signed, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the largest independent federal employee union, filed suit against Trump in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking declaratory and injunctive relief “enjoining President Trump from implementing or enforcing the January 20, 2025 Executive Order.”  Among the arguments raised in the lawsuit, the NTEU contends that the 2025 Executive Order is unlawful because it:

• Is contrary to the intent of Congress in enacting comprehensive legislation governing the hiring and employment of federal employees, legislation under which Congress granted federal employees due process rights, if their agency-employer wants to remove them from employment.
• Deprives employees transferred to Schedule F of their vested due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.
• Effectively rescinds current OPM regulations, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, by requiring agencies to act immediately, when the applicable regulations require agencies to take a series of steps before shifting any position into a new excepted service schedule, like Schedule F, and to provide advance, written notice to any employee whose position is moved to an excepted service schedule.

There is no real clarity about what is likely to happen next with the 2025 Executive Order. We will continue to provide you with updates regarding the status of the litigation and any efforts to move forward with implementation of the 2025 Executive Order. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to Doug Taylor, at rdougtaylor@beankinney.com or (703) 525-4000. Our firm practices in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia in addition to various other jurisdictions.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not contain or convey legal advice. Consult a lawyer. Any views or opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily the views of any client.