On March 13, 2025, U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California ordered six federal agencies to immediately reinstate probationary employees fired in the February mass terminations, ruling that OPM and Acting Director Charles Ezell had no legal authority to direct governmentwide terminations. The order covered the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury.
Key Findings
Judge Alsup found that OPM had directed all agencies to terminate probationary employees using a standardized template that falsely cited performance as the basis for firing. "It is a sad, sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that's a lie," Alsup stated from the bench.
The ruling established that OPM exceeded its statutory authority: while OPM can provide guidance to agencies, it cannot direct hiring or firing decisions, which rest with individual agency heads under Title 5.
Reinstatement and Resistance
The order required agencies to reinstate all employees fired on or around February 13-14 and notify them that their terminations were found unlawful. Agencies were prohibited from using OPM's termination template going forward. However, multiple agencies responded by placing reinstated employees on administrative leave rather than returning them to duty, prompting Alsup to issue follow-up orders finding the agencies in violation.
Supreme Court Intervention
The administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which on April 8, 2025 stayed Alsup's reinstatement order for approximately 16,000 employees, allowing the terminations to stand pending appeal. The Supreme Court's intervention effectively neutralized the lower court's check on executive overreach, a pattern that would repeat throughout 2025.
Capture Significance
The Alsup ruling represented the judiciary's most forceful early challenge to the administration's workforce destruction campaign. However, the Supreme Court's rapid intervention to stay the reinstatement order demonstrated the limits of judicial checks when the highest court is ideologically aligned with the executive. The sequence — lower court finds illegality, Supreme Court permits it anyway — became a recurring pattern of the Trump second term.