Overview

• U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued a final ruling finding that the Office of Personnel Management unlawfully directed agencies to fire probationary employees, calling the government’s submitted record a “sham.”
• The court ordered agencies to correct personnel files and send standardized notices stating the terminations were not for performance, and barred agencies from adding language disputing the ruling.
• Alsup declined to mandate mass reinstatement, citing the passage of time, agency reorganizations, and the Supreme Court’s earlier technical action that undercut broad rehiring remedies.
• For workers who were rehired during injunctions and later terminated again, agencies may not backdate the second firing to the original; the court also barred agencies from taking dismissal direction from OPM.
• More than 25,000 probationary employees were swept up in the early-2025 firings at multiple departments, and most agencies are covered by the order with exemptions noted for the State Department and NASA.