Will the Supreme Court Demand the Trump Administration Rehire Thousands of Federal Workers?

Background

In the opening few weeks of the new administration, thousands of probationary workers were laid off as a part of Trump’s efforts to cut the size of government through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), through Acting Director Charles Ezell, put out a statement on February 14th requesting agencies to make comprehensive lists of probationary employees that they “have not identified as mission-critical.” [1] According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), OPM originally gave the discretion of retaining or terminating employees to each individual agency; however, after the NSF communicated to OPM that it would be retaining all of its employees, NSF received an explicit direction from OPM that its non-mission-critical employees needed to be fired. [2]

District Court

On February 19, 2025, plaintiffs filed a “complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief,” and followed up four days later with “an amended complaint and moved for a temporary restraining order.” [3] The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, based in San Francisco. The following week, Judge William Alsup ordered that the Office of Personnel Management’s attempts “to direct the termination of employees at NPS, BLM, VA, DOD, SBA, and NSF are illegal, invalid and must be stopped and rescinded.” [4]

The Administration’s Reaction

The Trump administration subsequently requested an administrative stay from the Ninth Circuit Court, which the court denied. [5] On March 13th, Acting Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris filed an application to the Supreme Court, requesting an administrative stay which would overturn the District Court’s order to reinstate the terminated federal employees. [6] Judge Alsup’s court order is one of many that the new administration has been hit with during its first few months. According to the New York Post, there has been a sharp increase in the number of court orders under Trump’s second term in comparison to previous presidents. [7] The article states that “lower courts have slapped at least 15 national injunctions against Trump so far, drastically [outpacing] the six against former President George W. Bush during his entire presidency and the 12 against former President Barack Obama.” [8] Statistics like this fuel President Trump’s frustration at the constitutional checks and balances of government, leading him to take to social media, calling for “Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court [to] fix this toxic and unprecedented situation,” a request that is unlikely to be granted. [9]

What’s Next?

Despite the Supreme Court being stacked 6-3 in favor of conservatives, with three of the nine Justices appointed by Trump himself, the Court has demonstrated that it simply won’t blindly go along with everything the new administration is doing. In late February, the Supreme Court denied Trump’s emergency appeal to fire Office of Special Counsel Chief Hampton Dellinger. [10] This outcome could foreshadow the future results of many other appeals that Trump’s DOJ has made to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, there have been hints of conflict between President Trump and Chief Justice John Roberts. Trump, who called for the impeachment of a district judge over social media after the judge made a decision he didn’t like, said “for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to [a] disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” and that “the normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.” [11]

Although we will have to wait to see the Supreme Court’s ruling on the administrative stay, there’s another question that needs to be examined: will the court’s decision matter? One of the most controversial parts of the new administration has been their defiance of court orders. [12] Arguably the most prominent case was in relation to the order mandating the return of the Venezuelan immigrants from El Salvador. [13] After Trump sent planes full of Venezuelan immigrants to a foreign prison without due process, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge James E. Boasberg ordered the planes to turn back and return to the United States. [14] The administration ignored Boasberg's order, and, as of today, the order has still not yet been followed. Only time will tell whether or not the administration will continue on its current trajectory denying courts, or if the separation of powers will survive what many are calling a constitutional crisis.

Sources:

1. American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO v. United States Office of Personnel Management, No. 3:25-cv-01780-WHA (N.D. Cal. Feb. 28, 2025).
2. Id.
3. Id.
4. Id.
5. Amy Howe, Trump Asks Justices to Block Ruling on Rehiring Federal Employees (Mar. 25, 2025, 9:45 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/03/trump-asks-justices-to-block-ruling-on-rehiring-federal-employees/
6. Emergency Application for a Stay at 1, Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Emps. v. United States, No. 24A904 (U.S. Mar. 24, 2025).
7. Ryan King, Lower Courts Blocking Trump’s Executive Orders at Much Higher Rate than Predecessors, N.Y. POST, March 23, 2025.
8. Id.
9. Andrew Chung, Trump Takes Challenge to Judge's Federal Worker Rehiring Order to Supreme Court, REUTERS, March 24, 2025.
10. Tommy Christopher, DENIED: Trump Emergency Appeal To Fire Watchdog Immediately Rejected In Unsigned Supreme Court Order, Newstex Blogs Mediaite, February 22, 2025, https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:6F60-KN03-RTYD-653H-00000-00&context=1519360&identityprofileid=P8TPSS51565.
11. Chris Megerian et al., Roberts Rejects Trump’s Call for Impeaching Judge Who Ruled Against his Deportation Plans, ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 18, 2025.
12. David Dayen, Will Trump Continue to Defy Court Orders?, The American Prospect, February 11, 2025, https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:6F3N-7553-S2NX-W3S6-00000-00&context=1519360&identityprofileid=P8TPSS51565.
13. Nicholas Riccardi and Regina Garcia Cano, Trump Administration Deports Hundreds of Immigrants Even as a Judge Orders their Removals be Stopped, ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 17, 2025.
14. Id.
15. Id.