WASHINGTON, D.C. (FEDweek) — The Supreme Court has ruled to allow Trump’s executive order on mass reductions-in-force (RIFs) to move forward. The ruling effectively lifts prior injunctions that had stalled agency actions and removes a major legal barrier to the administration’s workforce overhaul.
The court recently issued a decision limiting the discretion of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions. That ruling seemed to leave more leeway in cases involving the Administrative Procedure Act – affecting federal employees more broadly, but has now sided with the White House’s challenge to the injunction.
“This is an important ruling for the current administration as it provides the green light to continue with planned Agency reorganizations and reductions in force. However, the distinction made here is that the language of the EO states that these actions are consistent with applicable law,” said Ryan Nerney, managing partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC. “Therefore, while SCOTUS’s ruling lifts the injunction, it leaves the door open for individual cases to challenge if the action plans and reorganizations are ‘consistent with applicable law’.”
WH Touts Reductions on FedScope
Meanwhile, OPM said “hundreds of thousands” of federal employees accepted deferred resignation offers while confirming that “tens of thousands” are facing layoffs in pending RIFs.
OPM made that statement in the first—although not exact—accounting of the government-wide impact of those offers, and touted a reduction in the federal employee count on its FedScope site to just under 2.29 million through March, down by some 23,000 from last September.
“In addition, hundreds of thousands more workers will drop off the rolls in October 2025, when workers depart the federal government as part of the Deferred Resignation Program; and tens of thousands of employees who have received reduction-in-force or termination notices remain on government payrolls due to court orders that the administration is now challenging,” the OPM said prior to Tuesday’s SCOTUS decision siding with the White House.
The initial “fork in the road” deferred resignation offer in late January stirred controversy and lawsuits over its legality—including its promise to keep employees on paid administrative leave through as long as September 30, contrary to policy on that form of leave. Many agencies later made similar offers as they prepared to comply with a White House directive to prepare for substantial RIFs and reorganizations.
Some employees who accepted offers reported that their agencies had kept them on the job beyond when they had been promised, although by now all, or nearly all, already are out of the workplace.
OPM did not respond to a request for a more exact accounting.
