The U.S. Supreme Court threw cold water on a sweeping order that would’ve returned thousands of fired federal workers to their desks, dealing yet another win to Donald Trump as he continues carving down the federal bureaucracy with surgical precision.
With barely a sentence of explanation, the high court hit pause on Judge William Alsup’s injunction that demanded six federal agencies reinstate recently fired probationary employees. These aren’t long-timers—most hadn’t even hit their one-year anniversaries—but many had been decades-deep in federal service before taking new posts. Now, they’re in limbo again.
The impacted departments? Defense, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Interior, and Treasury. But thanks to a parallel lawsuit out of Maryland, some of those workers may still be safe—at least the ones living or working in D.C. or any of the 19 states that took legal action over the mass firings. Everyone else? No guarantees.
The Department of Defense, in particular, has been tight-lipped about the number of employees impacted. What’s known is this: they were aiming to cut around 5,400 probationary civilian jobs. How many already got pink slips or reinstated pay stubs is unclear.
The Supreme Court’s unsigned decision honed in on legal standing—or lack thereof—dismissing the case brought by nonprofit organizations without weighing in on the broader legality of the mass terminations. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson didn’t stay quiet, breaking ranks in dissent.
Unions and progressive states argue that what’s unfolding is a quiet, administrative coup. The Office of Personnel Management, they claim, overreached—ordering blanket firings and then trying to paper over it with phony “performance” reviews. The coalition behind the lawsuit called the court’s move “deeply disappointing” but made it clear they aren’t retreating. “We’ll be back in court tomorrow,” they promised.
“This isn’t about bureaucracy,” said Eric Engle, head of a West Virginia union chapter. “This is about people.” He represents 85 reinstated workers at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, some of whom may now face another round of job losses. “One woman had just sat down at her desk again—an hour before this decision hit. If the president can just override labor protections and unions have no legal standing, then we’re already living under a dictatorship.”
The Trump administration insists Alsup overstepped, pushing back on the idea that 16,000 reinstatements were justified. Alsup—no stranger to heavyweight rulings—had openly questioned the firings and the government’s rationale for calling them performance-based.
The Supreme Court’s pattern is becoming clear: this week alone, they gave Trump the green light to pursue deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members using a wartime-era law, blocked the return of a wrongfully deported Salvadoran man, and lifted roadblocks on cuts to teacher diversity training programs.
Whether it’s immigration, education, or now the federal workforce, Trump’s vision of a streamlined, ideologically aligned government is being quietly greenlit—one court order at a time.
