Supreme Court backs Trump for now on fired probationary federal employees

The Supreme Court’s decision blocks a ruling from a lower court judge that required the government to reinstate more than 16,000 probationary employees.

The decision is not the final word on whether the employees will be allowed to keep their jobs, but it will have a significant impact on both the workers and the agencies in the meantime.

Two liberal justices – Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson – publicly dissented.

The full implications of the ruling are not clear given that a federal judge in Maryland earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction that reinstated some of the employees not covered in the case before the Supreme Court.