Updated February 26, 2025 at 06:33 AM ET
Six fired federal employees must be rehired at least through April 10, according to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the independent federal agency that hears employee complaints against the government.
The MSPB issued a 45-day stay of the terminations Tuesday evening in response to a request from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which had begun investigating the firings.
"I find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each of the six agencies engaged in a prohibited personnel practice," stated the order from board member Raymond A. Limon.
The decision comes four days after U.S. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger argued that he had "reasonable grounds" to believe that federal agencies had violated federal statute in terminating six employees who were still on probationary status.
The 45-day stay will allow the investigation to continue. Meanwhile, the Office of Special Counsel says it is considering ways to seek relief for a broader group of federal employees similarly fired in recent weeks. (The office is separate from the special counsels appointed by the Justice Department.)
The six agencies named in the original complaint — the departments of Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and Veterans Affairs, and the Office of Personnel Management — have five working days to provide evidence that they are complying with the order.
While probationary employees lack some of the job protections afforded to career civil servants, they cannot be terminated "at will," Dellinger wrote in his filing with the MSPB. Moreover, agencies must inform employees why they are being fired.
None of the six had performance issues, according to the investigation. Instead, Dellinger wrote, the evidence indicates that agencies improperly used the employees' probationary status to accomplish a downsizing of the workforce, without following the proper procedures for doing so.
Those fired included disabled veterans working for the departments of Education and Veterans Affairs who would receive preference in a mass layoff done legally.
The Office of Special Counsel took up the case of the six fired employees after receiving a complaint, brought on their behalf by the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward and the Alden Law Group.
"These are hardworking individuals," said Michelle Bercovici, a partner with the Alden Law Group. "They're people who want to make this country better."
Democracy Forward and the Alden Law Group have amended their original complaint to include more than a dozen other federal agencies.
"We will continue to urge the Office of the Special Counsel and the MSPB to follow the law, protect all federal workers, investigate misconduct, and uphold the independence and integrity of our civil service," said Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman in a statement.
Dellinger himself was fired abruptly by the Trump administration earlier this month. He sued, noting that under the law, the special counsel may be removed by the president "only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." A judge temporarily reinstated him while his case winds through judicial system.
Have information you want to share about ongoing changes across the federal government? NPR's Andrea Hsu can be contacted through encrypted communications on Signal at andreahsu.08.
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