Congress established the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) through the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. The agency operates as an independent watchdog to shield federal workers from retaliation and prohibited personnel practices (PPPs).
PPPs are employment-related activities that are banned in the federal workforce because they undermine the government’s commitment to a nonpartisan civil service.
OSC is responsible for investigating these practices, including actions like firing or demoting someone for political reasons, punishing whistleblowers, showing favoritism, or violating merit-based hiring and firing rules. OSC is the only agency with the authority to investigate and prosecute PPPs across the executive branch.
In February 2025, the Trump-Vance administration terminated thousands of probationary federal employees across the government. These mass firings violated federal regulations and core merit system principles designed to ensure the integrity of the non-partisan career civil service. More than 2,000 probationary employees filed complaints with the OSC, arguing that their terminations were unlawful.
The OSC initially agreed, and the then Senate-confirmed Special Counsel, Hampton Dellinger, acted to protect these civil servants. He launched investigations and issued public statements affirming the OSC’s statutory role. But the Trump-Vance administration unlawfully removed Dellinger, and the OSC then abruptly reversed course, issued a directive closing more than 2,000 complaints, and left probationary employees without recourse.
On September 10, 2025, a group of former federal civil servants, represented by Democracy Forward, filed suit against the OSC and Acting Special Counsel Jamieson Greer for unlawfully abandoning their statutory duty to protect merit-based employees from PPPs. The plaintiffs — who served at agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, General Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Environmental Protection Agency, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission — were terminated despite strong performance reviews and no record of misconduct.
Their lawsuit argues that OSC’s actions violated the Administrative Procedure Act and its statutory obligations under Title V, and seeks to have OSC reopen and investigate complaints submitted by probationary employees in a manner consistent with the agency’s statutory obligations.
The case is Civil Servant 1 et al v. Office of Special Counsel et al.