President Trump signed an executive order on June 3, 2026, converting approximately 8,000 federal employees into at-will workers, stripping them of long-standing civil service protections and allowing the government to fire them without cause or appeal.
The order formalizes a new employment category called Schedule Policy/Career—renamed from Schedule F, which Trump created during his first term in 2020. Nearly all affected positions are at the GS-15 level or above, the highest ranks of the career civil service, including policy leaders, regional office heads, senior program managers, and officials overseeing spending and grants, according to federal officials.
Employees reclassified into Schedule Policy/Career will lose the right to appeal disciplinary actions to the Merit Systems Protection Board, a key protection that has governed federal employment since the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. They will also become ineligible for student loan repayment, recruitment incentives, and relocation bonuses. Under the new category, agencies can discipline or terminate affected workers for any reason, with no formal due process required.
The Trump administration framed the move as essential to accountability and ensuring the federal workforce carries out the president’s policy agenda. “It’s also about a restoration, in our mind, of the democratic process,” Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told reporters Wednesday. “In order to affect the policy priorities of the administration, we need to have people willing to and capable of carrying out those directives.”
The reclassification drew immediate opposition from federal employee unions and civil rights advocates. Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, called it “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.” Kelley warned that workers who once felt protected when reporting waste or misconduct would now fear retaliation.
The 8,000 figure represents a significant reduction from initial estimates. When the Office of Personnel Management proposed the rule in April 2025, officials estimated Schedule Policy/Career could affect as many as 50,000 positions, with some earlier projections suggesting 200,000. The administration has not ruled out expanding the pool in the future. Agencies now have seven days to update the affected employees’ personnel records.
Trump attempted a similar effort during his first term, issuing an executive order in October 2020 that created Schedule F in the final weeks of his presidency. The measure went largely unimplemented and was swiftly rescinded by the Biden administration in January 2021. The Government Accountability Office found that no agency had placed positions in Schedule F before it was revoked. The Biden administration later issued regulations in 2024 explicitly designed to reinforce civil service protections and block Schedule F’s return.
Legal challenges are already underway. Multiple organizations, including Democracy Forward and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, have filed lawsuits arguing that Schedule Policy/Career violates due process rights, exceeds presidential authority, and contradicts federal statute. Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman stated Wednesday that the move “would make it easier to purge experienced public servants,” warning that “when government experts can be fired without cause, it’s not just federal workers who are harmed — it’s the people across the country who rely on these essential services every day.”
Experts cautioned that politicization of senior career positions could undermine government effectiveness. Don Moynihan, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy, warned that the change “creates bubbles around policymakers.” He explained that career civil servants might become reluctant to share unfavorable information with leadership if they fear dismissal, and that politicization typically correlates with declining institutional performance. Raymond Limon, a former Biden appointee to the Merit Systems Protection Board and longtime career civil servant, characterized the administration’s accountability rationale as a “ruse,” noting that existing law already provides mechanisms to remove underperforming employees.
Sources
- Federal News Network — detailed reporting on the June 3 executive order, affected position categories, union reaction, and expert commentary from Don Kettl and Ron Sanders
- NPR — reporting on the executive order, historical context of civil service protections, OPM Director Kupor’s statements, expert analysis from Don Moynihan, and legal challenges
- The Washington Post — confirmation of the June 3 executive order and reclassification of 8,000 senior federal workers
- The Guardian — reporting on the job protections stripped from workers earning up to $200,000 annually in policy-influencing roles
