Equality at Work: Decimating the Federal Workforce

What do I need to know about this?

The Trump administration’s attempt to cast lawful diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices as “illegal DEI” is the administration’s most obvious line of attack on anti-discrimination practices. But another vector, and one operating at a much larger scale, is the parallel effort to hollow out the federal workforce through a combination of layoffs, elimination of services, and targeting of Black, LGBTQ+, and female workers.

The federal government has long stood both as a model for equal employment practices and as one of the most accessible workplaces for people traditionally excluded from private sector work. The administration’s attacks threaten both to erode stable, middle-class job opportunities for large numbers of Americans, and to undermine efforts for equality in all US workplaces.

Before we look at the administration’s actions — and the legal, legislative, and community countermoves already underway — some essential context:

• The federal government is the largest employer in the country: The federal government employs about 3 million civilians,¹ or just under 2% of the US workforce.²

• Federal workers have especially strong protections against illegal discrimination: Although all US employers are required to obey federal employment laws, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission directly coordinates³ anti-discrimination work across the federal government to ensure compliance. Agencies are required to maintain an office⁴ that handles complaints about harassment and discrimination, and to adhere to strict transparency rules⁵ for employment actions.

• Most federal workers have additional labor protections: About two-thirds of federal workers⁶ have civil service (or “merit systems”) protections⁷ that are intended to protect them and their work from political purges, and about a third of federal workers⁸ are members of labor unions. As a result, federal workers have multiple avenues⁹ for seeking protection against unfair discrimination.

These requirements and protections, combined with the scale of the federal workforce, have made the federal government a powerful force for equality at work. In addition to hurting everyone who relies on services performed by the federal government, the administration’s DOGE-enabled assault on federal workers disproportionately harms two groups in particular: Black Americans,¹⁰ who have benefited from anti-discrimination rules for federal jobs, and veterans,¹¹ who as of 2024 made up about 30% of all federal civilian workers.

Not included in the counts of civilian workers are the approximately 2 million uniformed service members¹² of the US armed forces. We include attacks on equality in the armed forces on this page as an explicit recognition that uniformed service members are also federal workers who — despite their special circumstances — deserve protection against discrimination.

What is happening?

The Trump administration is using the federal government’s power as the country’s largest employer to weaken equal access to employment by:

• Slashing the federal workforce, which reduces access to increased economic equality and stability for Black Americans, veterans of the US armed forces, and others who experience unfair exclusion in the private sector. More on this

• Gutting civil rights and anti-discrimination protections for federal workers by eliminating programs that strive to ensure fairness in hiring, management, and human resources policy, and closing Civil Rights Offices that oversee compliance with federal employment law for federal employees. More on this

• Banning transgender servicemembers and purging Black and female leaders from the US armed forces, reversing previous anti-discrimination policies and specifically targeting high-ranking officials. More on this

On this page, we’ll break down those lines of attack, along with the countermoves and resilience efforts we’re seeing across American society.

Attack: Slashing the federal workforce

Last updated: November 20, 2025

So far this year, 293,753 federal job cuts (PDF)¹³ — including government and contractor layoffs — have been attributed to the Trump administration’s DOGE initiative, including more than 200,000 cuts in March alone. Job losses in March were dominated by federal cuts and were the third-highest in the US since 1989.¹⁴ (The highest and second-highest months were April and May of 2020.) Federal job cuts lead job losses for the year, representing a third of total jobs cut across all sectors in 2025. “DOGE actions” is still the most-cited reason for job cut announcements this year.

At least 24,000 terminated workers¹⁵ were “probationary”¹⁶ — that is, they were newly hired into the federal workforce, or recently promoted into a new position. Probation typically lasts one to two years; probationary workers have fewer federal labor protections than their colleagues, and were therefore the easiest target for rapid, indiscriminate cuts of federal jobs and services. An April 24, 2025 executive order¹⁷ further endangered probationary workers by making automatic termination at the end of probation the norm. (Previously, a probationary worker in good standing would become a regular employee at the end of their probation.) Another executive order cancelled collective bargaining rights¹⁸ for thousands of federal civilian employees.

A limited (but unknown) number of cuts were directly related to the administration’s Day-One DEI ban:¹⁹ The administration fired federal workers assigned to DEI-related activities²⁰ and placed workers on leave as part of the DEI ban, despite the fact that many fired workers reportedly had no DEI-related responsibilities.²¹

The Trump administration also used a 43-day federal government shutdown that began on October 1, 2025 to carry out mass firings of workers in programs that are “not consistent with President Donald Trump’s priorities.”²² The federal government confirmed in a court filing²³ on October 10 that it had laid off around 4,200 people.²⁴ The spending bill²⁵ that ended the shutdown on November 12, 2025, reversed those layoffs²⁶ and protects federal employees from further layoffs through January 30, 2026. The estimated 670,000 employees who were furloughed and roughly 730,000 employees working without pay are expected to receive backpay²⁷ by November 19, though tens of thousands²⁸ of workers might not get paid until early December.

In the background of these job cuts, federal hiring has been frozen — but not across the board. A Day One presidential memo²⁹ froze hiring for all federal jobs with the exception of military personnel and “positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.” The freeze was set to expire within 90 days, but Trump has extended it until October 15, 2025,³⁰ and ordered that after its expiration, departments and agencies will only be able to hire one new worker for every four who leave.³¹ As this order expired, the administration followed up with a new executive order³² indefinitely renewing the restrictions³³ and specifying that agencies can only hire with the approval of Trump’s political appointees. Separately, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a hiring freeze (PDF)³⁴ at the Department of Defense that stranded civilian workers³⁵ already in the process of moving to new Defense Department jobs around the world. Unlike freezes at all other agencies, the IRS hiring freeze is indefinite. Political appointments are exempt³⁶ from the freeze.

The Trump administration’s mass job cuts were announced as a vehicle for massive savings: DOGE initially promised $2.2 trillion in savings³⁷ and later claimed to have saved $150 billion;³⁸ in August 2025, a POLITICO investigation verified only $1.4 billion³⁹ in savings, all of which has been returned to the agencies that are authorized to spend it, and will thus have no impact on the deficit. According to an analysis of Treasury spending by the nonpartisan (if pragmatically right-leaning)⁴⁰ Penn Wharton Budget Model, federal spending is up 5.6%, or $375 billion,⁴¹ this year. The nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service estimated in April that the DOGE-linked cuts have cost $135 billion,⁴² not including legal expenses required to fight related lawsuits or lost tax revenue due to IRS job cuts and dropped investigations. The Treasury Department estimates a tax revenue loss of up to $500 billion⁴³ in 2025 due to staffing shortages at the IRS.

The government shutdown also had a negative effect on the economy: The Congressional Budget Office estimates an unrecoverable loss of $11 billion (PDF)⁴⁴ due to furloughed federal employees working fewer hours during the shutdown.

Where this stands

While lawsuits⁴⁵ have at times halted or slowed the administration’s efforts to hollow out the federal government,⁴⁶ the Supreme Court has repeatedly intervened to permit the layoffs to continue. A lawsuit seeking to block the majority of the layoffs⁴⁷ resulted in a preliminary injunction, but on July 8, 2025, the Supreme Court issued a stay,⁴⁸ clearing the way for large-scale “reductions in force” to resume. Days later, the State Department⁴⁹ and the US Institute of Peace⁵⁰ moved forward with planned reorganizations. The following week, the Supreme Court again ruled that layoffs can continue,⁵¹ granting the administration permission to fire more than 1,000 employees at the Department of Education. Since then, layoffs have proceeded at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM),⁵² Health and Human Services (HHS),⁵³ and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),⁵⁴ with more⁵⁵ in the works. While the Supreme Court ruling has given some cover to ongoing layoffs, the White House is preparing for additional lawsuits.⁵⁶

Many fired probationary workers across the federal government were rehired under court orders, and then refired⁵⁷ after the Supreme Court⁵⁸ and a federal court of appeals⁵⁹ paused reinstatements. Meanwhile, a Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) administrative judge ruled in May⁶⁰ that probationary employees can pursue reinstatement in a class action, and multiple⁶¹ class-action lawsuits⁶² have been filed. But it’s unlikely those lawsuits will provide any near-term relief: the MSPB is currently operating without a quorum⁶³ and with more than twice its usual workload.⁶⁴

Any workers who remain in the federal government — or are hired into it — may find their roles are increasingly precarious. A July 1 memo issued by the Commerce Department⁶⁵ notes that all probationary employees must be “automatically separated” (PDF)⁶⁶ (that is, fired) at the end of probation, unless a senior leader, in their “sole and exclusive discretion,” intervenes to keep them. Meanwhile, an appeals court permitted the administration to proceed with stripping collective bargaining rights,⁶⁷ and the VA⁶⁸ and EPA⁶⁹ moved forward with canceling union contracts. An unknown number of federal workers have voluntarily left through buyouts or early retirement,⁷⁰ and morale at many agencies⁷¹ is reportedly low.

While the administration continues to argue in court for the power to lay off federal workers en masse, they are simultaneously scrambling to rehire⁷² fired workers⁷³ and arguing for staffing increases,⁷⁴ as many agencies have been left incapacitated. How many workers will be willing⁷⁵ or able to return, and what working conditions they will find if they choose to do so, remains unknown.

Who is being affected?

Since the 1960s, the federal government has made it easier for people unfairly excluded from private-sector employment to get stable, middle-class jobs by enacting hiring and management policies grounded in civil rights law. Attacks on the federal workforce affect all Americans who interact with the federal agencies and services. They also disproportionately harm communities who experience unfair exclusion in the private sector, including Black Americans⁷⁶ and military veterans.

Black Americans: Federal employment policy has resulted in the expansion of the Black middle class,⁷⁷ and mass cuts to the federal workforce directly endangers these gains.⁷⁸ Black workers make up about 18.5% of the federal workforce,⁷⁹ compared to about 13% of the US workforce⁸⁰ as a whole. At the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which is targeted for the largest cuts across all agencies to date, about a quarter of employees are Black.⁸¹ At the Department of Education, which has been cut in half since January,⁸² 30% of employees are Black.⁸³ Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics⁸⁴ shows that 106,000 Black women lost jobs in April 2025, the largest job loss of any demographic⁸⁵ that month; in the August jobs report, the unemployment rate for Black women rose to 6.7% (PDF),⁸⁶ while the rate for Black Americans overall rose to 7.5%. Lawyers representing terminated federal employees have noted that a supermajority of people impacted by the layoffs are Black women.⁸⁷

In addition to the layoffs disproportionately harming Black workers, racial disparities in household wealth mean the lapse in federal funding hit Black Americans especially hard.⁸⁸ Census data from 2021⁸⁹ shows white, non-Hispanic households have 10 times more wealth than Black ones.

The precarity this causes was evident in who was most harmed by the federal government blocking food aid:⁹⁰ Black people account for about 13% of the population but more than 26% of people who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The Trump administration has also used the justice system to target Black women⁹¹ in positions of power, including Lisa Cook,⁹² a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors; Letitia James,⁹³ New York Attorney General; and Fani Willis,⁹⁴ the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia.

Veterans: About 1 in 10 employed veterans⁹⁵ in the US works for the federal government, where they make up about 30% of the federal civilian workforce.⁹⁶ Veterans are likely to experience disproportionate harm as the Trump Administration slashes jobs across federal departments, including 80,000 jobs targeted⁹⁷ at the Department of Veterans Affairs — a layoff that has the potential to harm veterans who receive VA care as well as those who provide and administer it.

Attack: Dissolving civil rights protections for federal workers

Last updated: July 24, 2025

In a Day-One executive order,⁹⁸ the Trump Administration ordered the elimination of DEI- and DEIA-related offices and jobs within federal agencies. The US Office of Personnel Management issued guidance (PDF)⁹⁹ ordering federal departments and agencies to stop all DEI work, without eliminating functions mandated by federal civil rights law. This move — ordering the end of work that is either partly or entirely mandated by federal law, while publicly stating that mandatory work will somehow continue — is one we see across lines of attack and across issues.

The administration’s subsequent moves clarify that its targets include not only DEI but anti-discrimination and civil rights enforcement mandated by federal law. A news report of federal staff enforcing the administration’s DEI ban by removing a poster reading “Employment Discrimination is Illegal”¹⁰⁰ underscores the entanglement between allegedly illegal DEI work and legally mandated anti-discrimination efforts.

Since assuming power, the Trump administration has reportedly:

• Closed the Social Security Administration’s Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity,¹⁰¹ which dealt with discrimination and harassment complaints and accommodations for disabled employees within the SSA.
• Closed the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties,¹⁰² which processed civil rights complaints from members of the public, but also discrimination and harassment complaints and accommodations for disabled employees within DHS.
• Shut down the Federal Trade Commission’s Equal Employment Opportunity Office,¹⁰³ which processed¹⁰⁴ discrimination and harassment complaints and handled accommodations for disabled employees at the FTC.
• Reduced or closed NASA’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity,¹⁰⁵ which responded to discrimination and harassment complaints and disability accommodations. (Although internal memos¹⁰⁶ suggested that only “the Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility” branch of NASA’s Equal Opportunity office had been eliminated, the office’s website was removed as of January 22, and a field office’s website returned the message that the “Office Of Diversity and Equal Opportunity¹⁰⁷ has been decommissioned.”)

These closures happen at the same time as a threatened reduction of opportunity for disabled federal employees who rely on remote work¹⁰⁸ as a crucial accommodation, moving to eliminate disability hiring goals¹⁰⁹ for federal contractors, presidential rhetoric baselessly blaming disabled workers¹¹⁰ for plane crashes, and the closure of employee resource groups (ERGs) founded to help federal workers in vulnerable and unfairly excluded communities support and protect each other.¹¹¹

Where this stands

The White House does not have the power to change or repeal the federal laws that mandate anti-discrimination protections — only Congress has that power, and only federal courts can determine the legality of the Trump administration’s actions.

Multiple lawsuits related to the administration’s DEI ban are making their way through the courts. Some DEI-related closures appear to involve ignoring congressional mandates,¹¹² but barring Congressional interference or judicial orders to re-open and re-staff closed offices and programs, these losses will stand.

Who will be affected?

The weakening or effective removal of anti-discrimination and civil rights protections potentially affects all federal workers, but will fall most heavily on workers who experience discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace.

Likewise, the destruction of employee resource groups and reduction of employee protections comports with plans announced by the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought,¹¹³ to traumatize and demoralize the federal workforce¹¹⁴ as a whole. But by acquiring lists of federal workers in ERGs¹¹⁵ and using the DEI ban as cover for firing workers who merely participated in optional DEI-related activities¹¹⁶ under former administrations, the Trump administration is able to put specific pressure on women and workers of color,¹¹⁷ LGBTQ+ workers,¹¹⁸ and disabled workers.¹¹⁹

Attack: Banning transgender servicemembers & purging Black and female leaders from the US armed forces

Last updated: August 14, 2025

Although Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964¹²⁰ outlaws discrimination against federal employees and applicants, federal circuit courts have ruled that this protection does not apply to uniformed service members.¹²¹ Many essential civil rights protections for service members have been granted not through law but by executive orders¹²² and Department of Defense policies.¹²³ These orders and policies are easily revoked by new administrations, and as a result, civil rights protections for service members — and in many cases, for veterans and military families — are highly vulnerable to shifting presidential priorities.

In January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order¹²⁴ stating that transgender service members are intrinsically unable to uphold “a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle,” and directing the Department of Defense to act accordingly. The Department of Defense issued bans on transgender people joining the military or accessing gender-affirming care while in the military (PDF)¹²⁵ and ordered the removal of transgender service members (PDF)¹²⁶ from the US armed forces.

A second executive order¹²⁷ signed in January 2025 claims that DEI programs “undermine leadership, merit, and unit cohesion, thereby eroding lethality and force readiness.” In addition to shutting down DEI-related initiatives focused on service-member quality of life¹²⁸ and removing recognition of Black, Asian American, and Indigenous service members from military websites,¹²⁹ the administration has embarked on a purge of senior military leaders that has included the highest-placed Black and female leaders in the armed forces. By the end of April, President Trump had:

• Fired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,¹³⁰ General CQ Brown Jr.,¹³¹ only the second Black general to serve as head of the Joint Chiefs.
• Fired Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan,¹³² a four-star admiral and the first woman to lead any branch of the US military.
• Fired Admiral Lisa Franchetti,¹³³ the US Navy’s top officer and the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• Fired the top US admiral at NATO, Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield,¹³⁴ a helicopter pilot, former commander of a joint reconstruction team in Afghanistan, and the first woman to lead the Naval War College.¹³⁵

General Brown’s removal is the first firing of a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff¹³⁶ in US history. General Fagan and General Franchetti’s firings left the US military with no women in four-star general or admiral¹³⁷ positions.

These purges are connected, rhetorically, to the administration’s attacks on DEI: The Trump administration characterized purged military leaders as “woke.”¹³⁸ Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth previously singled out General Brown — who was sworn in as Air Force Chief of Staff by President Trump in 2020 — as a leader who may have been elevated “because of his skin color,”¹³⁹ rather than his skill. Hegseth also wrote that Franchetti was “unqualified”¹⁴⁰ and may have been chosen for “optics,” rather than “merit.” Chatfield¹⁴¹ and Brown (PDF) ¹⁴² were targeted by the American Accountability Foundation,¹⁴³ a far-right organization¹⁴⁴ currently focused on ideological purges of government workers and military figures — who are, Reuters reminds us,¹⁴⁵ intended to be loyal to the constitution, not the president.

Where this stands

• The Supreme Court has allowed the transgender ban to proceed¹⁴⁶ while suits against it move through the federal courts, and service members are already being forced out.¹⁴⁷ After first asserting that service members with 15 to 18 years of service would be eligible for early retirement, the US Air Force reversed course,¹⁴⁸ denying early retirement and rescinding approvals already given. The decision strips service members of potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in lifelong benefits.
• President Trump has replaced General Brown with Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Dan Caine,¹⁴⁹ the first person to become Chair of the Joint Chiefs without ever having been a four-star general or admiral, and whose appointment required a waiver to circumvent the legal requirement for this experience.
• Admiral Fagan, whom the Trump administration blamed for an inadequate response to a sexual harassment cover-up¹⁵⁰ by her predecessor, has been replaced by Admiral Kevin Lunday¹⁵¹ pending the nomination and confirmation of a new Commandant. Lunday, as acting Coast Guard Commandant, immediately suspended the policy Fagan established to combat sexual harassment.¹⁵²
• Admiral Franchetti has been replaced by Admiral Jim Kirby¹⁵³ until a new Chief Naval Officer is nominated and confirmed.¹⁵⁴
• Vice Admiral Chatfield, a three-star admiral, has been replaced at NATO’s Military Committee by Brigadier General Sean Flynn.¹⁵⁵ (Brigadier generals are one-star generals.)

Who will be affected?

Because of the transgender service ban, all transgender active, National Guard, and reserve members of the US armed forces face the prospect of being forced to self-identify¹⁵⁶ for “voluntary separation” or be pushed out of the service — experiences that troops describe¹⁵⁷ as “open cruelty,” “dehumanizing,” and “absolutely heartbreaking.” The Department of Defense estimates the number of servicemembers with an officially recorded diagnosis of gender dysphoria at about 4,200 people.¹⁵⁸ In 2018, the independent research institute The Palm Center used anonymous survey responses to estimate that the true number of transgender servicemembers was roughly 14,700 (PDF).¹⁵⁹

Determining the effects of President Trump’s purge of Black and female military leaders is more difficult. Taken as part of the administration’s wider purge of generals and top military lawyers, the firings alarm legal analysts,¹⁶⁰ military lawyers,¹⁶¹ and lawmakers¹⁶² who believe the firings are politicizing and weakening the US armed forces. Taken as part of an effort to target women and service members of color,¹⁶³ they raise concerns that women in the military will receive even less support¹⁶⁴ and that the administration’s military DEI ban is, in practice, an attack on leaders who aren’t white men.¹⁶⁵