Supreme Court gives Trump temporary win in dismissal of federal workers

President Donald Trump just got more relief from the U.S. Supreme Court, although it remains to be seen just how long it will last.

The Court has ordered that the Trump administration can move forward with the blanket firing of 16,000 probationary government workers.

The order was not a true victory for the Trump administration, as it was only ruled that the plaintiff in the case at issue did not have the necessary legal standing to file the suit.

Temporary win

We regularly see cases like this dismissed due to the plaintiff not having standing, so while this is a win, it may be short-lived, as I have little doubt another suit will be filed by someone who does have standing.

In this case, the Court ruled that the non-profits who brought the initial suit were not sufficiently suited to bring the case.

Two justices, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, saying that they believed the firings should have been paused while this all plays out in the lower courts, and I happen to agree with that.

I say that because there is no sense in firing these people if they are only going to be brought back to work again later.

For all parties, I think it would be best to pause the decision until they know one way or the other if they are going to have jobs or not. But firing them, bringing them back, then firing them again, only possibly to have to bring them back makes no sense to me.

And for the record, this ruling only pertained to this specific case, so there are still other workers whose firings remain paused by the courts.

While I definitely want to see our government workforce trimmed, I am not a big fan of how they are going about this.

I would prefer that directors and secretaries evaluate all personnel, then dismiss subpar workers and eliminate positions that are unnecessary or redundant.

I know several people caught in “probationary” status who are likely far better than most in their department.

One is a family member who just retired from the service and was hired as a contractor. The second is a friend who changed departments, but because she moved to a new position, she is considered probationary in that position, therefore, she was among those who were cut.

The former service member was hired as a contractor because they wanted to keep his leadership skills even though he retired from the service, and the second scenario was intended as a promotion.

So, in this case, you have two excellent employees who are going to lose their jobs solely because of the probationary designation.

I would much prefer evaluations to be done, then keep the best of the best and shed the dead weight.

The way Trump is doing this, there will still be plenty of dead weight that has been sitting at the same desk for years who will keep their jobs solely because of the designation… and I just don’t think that is very fair.