Lawsuit against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)

Along with Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), the Trump-Vance administration has launched sweeping efforts to dismantle federal equity programs, fire career civil servants, and impose a partisan loyalty test across government agencies. As part of this push, OPM sent guidance to agencies on enforcing Trump’s executive order to eliminate all federal diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) programs.

Despite legal obligations under FOIA, OPM has refused to release records detailing these efforts. On January 24th, we submitted a request for information on:

• Plans to close DEIA offices, conduct mass firings, and cancel DEIA-related contracts and training.
• Correspondence received by the administration’s “DEIA Truth” tipline and from government agencies.
• Directives from the White House and DOGE to OPM.
• Calendar records and communications of OPM Chief of Staff Amanda Scales, a former Musk executive.

Although OPM confirmed receipt of the request, it abruptly stopped responding and failed to meet the legal deadline for producing the records.

We have now taken legal action, filing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel the Trump administration to release these public records. The lawsuit is the first of its kind filed by Democracy Forward as part of a broader effort to expose the administration’s secretive and chaotic policymaking.