Challenge to President Trump’s Efforts to Gut Civil Service Protections through Schedule/Policy Career

For more than 140 years, the federal civil service has operated on a simple principle: government workers are hired based on merit—not political loyalty. In January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order seeking to undo that system through “Schedule P/C,” a mechanism that would allow the administration to reclassify large numbers of career civil servants as at-will employees.

Democracy Forward has led a broad public effort to oppose the Trump-Vance administration’s attempt implement Schedule F through a proposed rule rebranded as “Schedule Policy/Career,” or “Schedule P/C.” In June 2025, more than 115 organizations spanning public health, labor, civil rights, science, and good-government advocacy submitted a coalition comment to the Office of Personnel Management opposing the rule.

Schedule P/C, as proposed, is a category of federal employment that would allow certain positions to be excluded from standard civil service protections. Under Schedule P/C, employees can be fired at will, without cause or appeal rights. President Trump first attempted to create Schedule F in 2020 during his first administration; it was rescinded before being implemented. The renewed version is broader and would apply to tens of thousands of career employees involved in policy-related work.

Democracy Forward represents the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) in a lawsuit challenging Schedule P/C. The lawsuit argues that the executive orders and rules exceed the president’s authority, violate federal civil service laws, and strip workers of due process protections guaranteed by statute and the Constitution. Under Schedule P/C, civil servants who previously could only be fired for cause could be terminated without explanation, even if they were hired for their expertise and have served across multiple administrations. 

Congress deliberately established a professional, nonpartisan civil service to replace the corrupt “spoils system,” in which government jobs were awarded based on political allegiance. The Trump-Vance administration’s rule reverses that progress by allowing political appointees to remove scientists, public health professionals, and other experts and replace them with loyalists—undermining government effectiveness, increasing corruption, and threatening essential public services.