Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hi Interested Public,

Another breathless week. Federal employees received an email last weekend to which they either did or did not need to respond, which either would or would not result in their termination; they may receive another this coming weekend. Courts continue to issue orders against sweeping changes to the federal bureaucracy. The Merit Systems Protection Board and the federal judiciary have begun to weigh in on the administration’s tactic of terminating probationary employees for “performance” issues without naming what those issues might be. Trans service-members are set to be ejected from the US military, universities are beginning to scale back their future spending plans in the face of federal funding uncertainty, and income-driven repayment plans are no longer available on the Department of Education’s website.

Solidarity,

Sam

Editor’s Choice(s)

• Anti-DEI guidance from Trump administration misinterprets the law and guts educators’ free speech rights (The Conversation; 26 Feb 2025)

  “As professors of legal studies, we’ve taken a close look at the “Dear Colleague” letter. Here’s how the letter infringes on free speech, misunderstands the law and undermines education.”

• OPM illegally ordered agencies to fire ‘probationary’ federal employees, judge rules (Politico; 27 Feb 2025)

  “But the judge did not order the reinstatement of any fired workers, saying he was powerless to do so. …The San Francisco-based judge, however, did order OPM to rescind any directives it has issued requiring the mass terminations. OPM also must inform several agencies that it has no power to dictate firings across the federal bureaucracy. …Alsup, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, concluded that OPM advised the agencies to falsely claim the employees were fired for “performance” issues.

  “That’s just not right in our country, is it, that we would run our agencies with lies like that and stain somebody’s record for the rest of their life?” Alsup said as he issued his ruling from the bench after a court hearing in a lawsuit brought by labor unions and organizations whose members are served by agencies hobbled by the mass terminations. “Who’s going to want to work in a government that would do that?”” [emphasis added]

• BIG: Federal Board Agrees With OSC Order to Halt Firings (Talking Points Memo; 26 Feb 2025)

• Student Loan Forgiveness, Lower Payments Blocked For Millions As Department Of Education Removes More Forms (Forbes; 27 Feb 2025)

  “In response to the latest ruling, last Friday the department took down the online applications for IDR plans and for Direct loan consolidations. It appeared for several days that borrowers could still apply for these plans via a paper application, available for download through the Department of Education’s forms library. But then this week, the department removed the paper IDR application from the forms library – leaving borrowers with no means of applying for these plans. This could have profound implications for millions of student loan borrowers.”

• RIFs Are Coming: What Federal Employees Need to Know About the Upcoming Workforce Optimization Initiative (Fedsmith; 26 Feb 2025)

  “The memorandum advises agencies to create Agency Reorganization Plans (ARRPs) designed to:

  * Enhance service delivery to the American public

  * Increase productivity

  * Reduce full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, focusing on non-essential roles

  * Decrease the government’s real property footprint

  * Lower overall budget expenditure”

• Guidance on Agency RIF and Reorganization Plan (OPM Memo; 26 Feb 25)

  “Each Phase 1 ARRP should identify…3. All agency components and employees performing functions not mandated by statute or regulation who are not typically designated as essential during a lapse in appropriations”

  [Ed. Note: RIFs based on these Agency RIF and Reorganization Plans would essentially place the federal workforce in a permanent state of shutdown. Cf. OPM, “Guidance for Shutdown Furloughs” at 1.]

Conflicts Over Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

• American Bar Association suspends law school DEI rule enforcement (Reuters; 21 Feb 2025)

• LGBTQ Federal Workers Brace for a McCarthyist Purge (Mother Jones; 24 Feb 2025)

  “They’re not asking people, ‘Are you gay? Are you lesbian?’ They’re asking, ‘Who is participating in DEI?'”

• NSA staff accused of ‘lurid sex chats’ at work – they were just discussing LGBTQ+ issues (PinkNews; 26 Feb 2025)

• More Than 100 Intelligence Staffers Will Be Fired Over Sexually Explicit Texts In NSA Chatrooms, Gabbard Says (Forbes; 26 Feb 2025)

  “Right-wing activist Christopher Rufo had first reported on the matter on X earlier on Tuesday, noting that the DNI sent out a memo ordering all intelligence agencies to identify the employees involved in these chats…Gabbard responded to Rufo’s tweet saying the memo has been sent and added: “We know who they are. Action is underway.””

• Pentagon orders transgender troops to be separated from the military (The Hill; 27 Feb 2025)

• [Ed Note: I refer readers out to NALP’s Weekly Industry News Digest, which has separate coverage of this topic]

Academic Funding Reductions

• Universities feel ripple effects of DOGE cuts to health (Axios; 26 Feb 2025)

  • Stanford freezes staff hiring, citing possible federal cuts and increased taxes (San Francisco Chronicle; 26 Feb 2025)

  • Cornell freezes hiring, asks department heads to cut costs amid “financial uncertainty” (The Ithaca Voice; 27 Feb 2025)

  • US universities curtail PhD admissions amid Trump science funding cuts (Nature; 27 Feb 2025)

• The NIH Cuts Are Part Of An All-Out War On Higher Education (Defector; 28 Feb 2025)

  “It’s certainly true that the wealthiest schools, starved of federal funding, would find a way to continue paying for science. But most schools do not possess the kind of resources that Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins do, nor can the relative handful of extremely wealthy institutions be expected to fund scientific research for the entire country. The vast majority of NIH money goes to institutions that, without federal support, would likely be forced to shut down most or all of their medical research.”

Student Loans & the Dept of Ed

• Court Ruling Affirms Blocking of SAVE Plan While Next Steps for the Program Remain Uncertain (NASFAA; 25 Feb 2025)

  “It is important to note that Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) is established separately in statute and is not threatened by legal challenges to the SAVE plan.”

• Student Loan Borrowers Could Face Lifetime Of Debt Under GOP Plan To Gut Loan Forgiveness (Forbes; 26 Feb 2025)

  “House Republicans on Tuesday successfully passed a budget resolution that paves the way for trillions of dollars in tax cuts, which lawmakers hope to offset with significant reductions in federal spending. The move allows lawmakers to proceed with plans to draft legislation that would cut up to $330 billion in education-related spending, in part by slashing federal student loan forgiveness and repayment plan programs.”

Spending “Pauses”

• Roberts steps in to protect Trump admin's effort to avoid court's USAID payment order (Lawdork; 27 Feb 2025)

  “We don’t know the ultimate outcome in the case yet, but it did give the Trump administration what it wanted: not to issue the payments on Wednesday. Given what has happened here, it is a particularly concerning sign about Roberts’s willingness to support the independence of federal courts…The chief justice of the United States allowed an ongoing and increasingly bad-faith effort to distort and sidestep a district court’s temporary restraining order to work…While the Supreme Court might ultimately reject DOJ’s argument, allowing Ali to proceed with enforcing the TRO, the Trump administration’s effort to avoid court order compliance worked the first time in the new administration when Roberts was the last person standing between the administration and a deadline.”

• Judge continues to block Trump administration's freeze on federal assistance (CBS News; 25 Feb 2025)

  “AliKhan had previously issued a temporary restraining order that prevented the Trump administration from freezing federal assistance while she considered the nonprofits' request for injunctive relief.”

2025 Federal Reductions in Force

• Social Security Administration closes offices, cutting nearly 200 employees (Baltimore Banner; 25 Feb 2025)

  “Acting Commissioner Lee Dudek called the closures of the Office of Transformation on Monday and the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity on Tuesday part of an effort to eliminate wasteful and duplicative offices…A spokesman for the Social Security Administration said about 50 people in the Office of Transformation and about 140 people in the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity have been placed on administrative leave.”

• DoD Projects Civilian Employment Cut of 5-8 Percent (FEDweek; 24 Feb 2025)

“Performance Management”

• US personnel office walks back email ultimatum from Musk to workers (The Guardian; 24 Feb 2025)

• Federal workers sue over Elon Musk’s threat to fire them if they don’t explain their accomplishments (PBS; 24 Feb 2025)

• Feds to start getting weekly emails asking what they did. Bosses will see if it fits Trump goals. (Washington Post; 28 Feb 2025)

  “Federal workers are slated to receive a second email Saturday asking them for a bullet-point description of what they did in the past week — only this time, a new strategy from the Trump administration means they might have to respond, according to three people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.”

Other Topics

• Free virtual boot camp seeks to recruit and educate civil rights advocates (ABA Journal; 27 Feb 2025)