Overview

• The court’s emergency orders lift lower-court injunctions, allowing roughly 17 federal agencies to implement reduction-in-force plans that were blocked in May and June.
• Education Secretary Linda McMahon is now set to resume layoffs of nearly 1,400 department employees as part of a strategy to halve the agency’s workforce.
• The State Department plans to cut more than 1,300 positions, including 1,107 civil service and 246 foreign service officers, citing efficiency targets.
• A joint memo from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management instructs agencies to seek waivers for 30-day layoff notices, halving the traditional notification period.
• Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent warns that greenlighting these layoffs threatens the Constitution’s separation of powers and risks crippling critical agency functions while the underlying legal authority remains under review.