Summary

Federal Judge William Alsup ordered the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to rescind its January and February memos directing mass firing of probationary federal employees, ruling them “illegal.”

Alsup declared OPM “has no authority to tell any agency… who they can hire and who they can fire,” and ordered OPM to notify the Department of Defense immediately.

Though the ruling doesn’t automatically reinstate dismissed workers, union leaders called it “an important initial victory.”

Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell will testify at an upcoming hearing. The directives could have affected hundreds of thousands of government employees.