President Trump Reinstates Schedule F

Jennifer Isaacs

January 22, 2025

On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order: Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce. This Executive Order reinstates Schedule F and is aimed at stripping civil service protections for federal employees considered to be in policy-influencing positions.

This change effectively makes covered employees “at-will”employees, eliminating Merit Systems protections for those employees, and making it significantly easier to fire those employees. The Executive Order is expected to impact tens of thousands of federal employees.

President Trump initially enacted a Schedule F order during his first term, in 2020, however, it went largely untested and unenforced as it came at the very end of his term and President Biden rescinded the Order in January, 2021.

While President Trump has stated that this action is needed “due to numerous and well-documented cases of career federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership” the future of Schedule F remains unclear.

The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has already filed a lawsuit against Trump officials, attempting to invalidate the Executive Order. The lawsuit argues that converting career federal jobs into political positions is illegal, citing concerns regarding due process rights provided to federal employees, and claiming that the Order goes against Office of Personnel Management regulations and federal hiring principles.

In 2024, the Office of Personnel Management published a Final Rule in the Federal Register reinforcing and clarifying protections for nonpartisan career civil servants. This Rule was intended to prevent the possible reinstatement of Schedule F. While the newly reinstated Schedule F differs slightly from President Trump’s original Order, the administration would likely still need to go through a formal rule making process before employees could be reclassified under the new Order.

While implementation of this Executive Order may be stalled,Melville Johnson, P.C. will continue to monitor it and be prepared to assist any federal employees whose jobs are impacted by this change.

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This blog and web site published by Melville Johnson, P.C. should not be used as a substitute for seeking competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney. Readers of this information should not act upon any information contained on this blog or website without seeking professional counsel.

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