The Trump administration is dismantling decades of federal employee protections through a cascade of executive orders and finalized regulations that fundamentally reshape how government can discipline and fire career workers. On June 3, President Trump signed an executive order reclassifying approximately 8,000 federal employees into a new Schedule Policy/Career category, stripping them of civil service protections established under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and making them at-will employees who can be fired without cause.
The changes represent a sweeping reversal of protections that have governed federal employment for nearly half a century. The Civil Service Reform Act, signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, established merit system principles and prohibited personnel practices designed to shield federal workers from political patronage and arbitrary dismissal. Under the new Schedule Policy/Career designation, affected employees lose access to the Merit Systems Protection Board and cannot appeal their reclassification.
Alongside the executive order, the Trump administration has finalized multiple regulations that expand removal authority across government. On June 29, the Office of Personnel Management completed a final rule that extends “suitability and fitness” standards—historically applied only to job applicants—to current federal employees, allowing agencies to discipline or fire workers for post-appointment misconduct. The rule also broadens the factors agencies must consider, including timely tax filing, citizenship compliance, and adherence to nondisclosure obligations.
A second finalized rule, published June 30 and effective July 30, 2026, centralizes removal authority by allowing OPM itself to take suitability actions against employees across government, rather than leaving such decisions to individual agencies. This shift concentrates power over federal employment in OPM’s hands. “For too long, the federal government has had stronger tools to prevent someone with serious misconduct from entering public service than to address the same misconduct once that individual is already employed,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said in announcing the rule.
The administration’s overhaul extends to the appeals process itself. In July 2026, OPM and the Merit Systems Protection Board proposed eliminating the “Douglas factors”—12 considerations dating to 1981 that agencies must use to justify adverse actions against employees. Under the proposed rule, agencies would instead make removal determinations on a case-by-case basis with no standardized factors. OPM argues the change will improve efficiency, but critics warn it opens the door to inconsistency and political bias.
Federal employment attorneys and civil service advocates have raised alarm about the cumulative effect of these changes. Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told Federal News Network that the changes create a system where “nonpolitical career employees can be fired for doing their job correctly but inconveniently, and where they will have nowhere to go for a fair, independent second look.” He noted that Congress created and built up the merit system over 150 years specifically to prevent political patronage and retaliation against employees who report waste, fraud, or abuse.
Dan Meyer, a national security lawyer at Tully Rinckey PLLC, sees the changes as part of a broader effort to restore executive power. “All these decisions are of a whole cloth: Restoration of a strong executive branch, reversing the congressionally forced reforms following Watergate and the abuses by the FBI during the Civil Rights Movement,” Meyer told Federal News Network. “The presidency was weakened in the last third of the 20th century; now the Justice Department and the director of OPM are using new and existing authorities to crack down on the president’s own employees and appointees.”
The regulatory push has already sparked legal challenges. Protect Democracy and the American Federation of Government Employees are among several organizations suing the Trump administration over the implementation of Schedule Policy/Career, arguing it violates the Civil Service Reform Act. A recent Supreme Court decision has also expanded presidential firing authority, ruling that presidents can dismiss the heads of independent agencies at-will, despite laws requiring cause.
OPM Director Kupor and other administration officials frame the changes as necessary to hold employees accountable and ensure they carry out presidential directives. John Gibbs, director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, expressed support for the effort, arguing that without such changes, the federal bureaucracy becomes too entrenched to respond to presidential policy priorities. However, Jules Torti, counsel at Protect Democracy, warned that the combined effect amounts to “a complete revolution in internal government operations” that increases the risk of bias and selective enforcement.
Sources
- Federal News Network — reporting on Trump administration’s reshaping of federal employee discipline and removal rules, executive order reclassifying 8,000 employees, OPM suitability rule finalization, and proposed Douglas factors elimination
- NPR — confirmation of Trump’s June 3 executive order turning 8,000 federal workers into at-will employees
- The Washington Post — reporting on Trump’s executive order stripping job protections from 8,000 senior federal workers
- The New York Times — coverage of Trump administration’s policy to strip job protections from up to 50,000 federal workers
- E&E News by POLITICO — reporting on Trump administration’s June 29 regulation expanding agencies’ power to fire federal workers
- The White House — fact sheet on President Trump’s accountability measures in the federal workforce
- FEDweek — reporting on OPM’s finalized rules giving OPM power to fire federal employees on suitability grounds
- U.S. Government Accountability Office — historical information on the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — documentation of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and federal employee protections
