Dismissed Scientists File Class-Action Lawsuit Against Trump Administration

A group of scientists has initiated a lawsuit against the Trump administration following their dismissal from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), resulting from a wave of firings conducted by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year, as outlined in a lawsuit filed on Monday.

In a 42-page complaint, ecologist Arianna Goodman, along with three other former NOAA staff members, claims the federal government, under the guidance of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and following directions from DOGE, terminated hundreds of employees “for cause based on performance issues that completely contradicted their personnel records.”

The lawsuit, at essence, alleges formalistic subterfuge in service of President Donald Trump’s widely-publicized plans “to slash the size of the federal bureaucracy.” In early February, “DOGE representatives visited NOAA offices and gained access to the agency’s IT systems,” the filing notes. Then, in late February, some 100 NOAA employees – including researchers, biologists, ecologists, meteorologists, researchers, and computer engineers – “were terminated.”

“That afternoon, affected employees received a boilerplate memorandum via email, notifying them that they were being terminated for cause during their probationary period,” the lawsuit reads. “On information and belief, the email used the exact same justification for every employee who was fired.”

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Goodman offers her own experience as typical. The complaint relays a portion of an email that told her she was “not fit for continued employment” based on OPM guidance to “assess employee performance and manage staffing levels.”

“But that just cannot be right,” the lawsuit reads. “Ms. Goodman had received uniformly positive feedback about her work, and her records contained no indication that she had ever done anything other than meet or exceed expectations. In fact, Ms. Goodman had recently received a performance-based pay increase, and one of her supervisors described her as ‘an outstanding performer’ and ‘a tremendous employee’ who was ‘integral’ to her team’s work.”

The plaintiffs juxtapose the government’s justifications with how at least some of the fired employees were recently reviewed.

“Hundreds of probationary employees at NOAA faced the same situation: permanent marks on their employment history stating they had been fired for cause based on performance issues that were entirely inconsistent with their personnel records,” the lawsuit goes on.

To hear the plaintiffs tell it, the firings have nothing to do with performance at all. Rather, they argue, the form letter-provided excuses are just thin papering over the Trump administration’s widely-telegraphed disdain for federal workers.

“For months, the Trump Administration has engaged in extensive purges of the federal workforce,” the lawsuit goes on. “A central justification offered by Administration officials, especially early on, was that the federal government was filled with poor performers. These officials implied or outright stated that federal employees were lazy and inefficient.”

The lawsuit offers several examples, at length:

Defendants’ decision to fire probationary employees for performance reasons — without a shred of support — was intentional, and appeared to be motivated in part by the Trump Administration’s deep-seated animus toward federal workers. President Trump has likened federal workers to “cancer” and referred to the federal workforce as “crooked” and “dishonest.” Elon Musk — the leader of DOGE, which instigated the probationary purge through OPM — compared federal workers to those who worked for Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick implied that those who complain about DOGE’s cuts to government capacity are being dishonest: “A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining.” And Russell Vought, now a senior administration official, previously said that his goal in reforming the government was for federal workers to be “traumatically affected.”

This campaign of layoffs, undergirded not by the actual performance of NOAA employees, but instead a desire to simply fire people, the plaintiffs argue, has resulted in their “unlawful termination.”

While many similarly situated lawsuits filed by fired or to-be-fired federal workers have used the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), to try and regain their jobs, the NOAA workers are trying a different route. Rather than suing for reinstatement, these workers are looking for actual damages — in an amount to be determined at trial.

The complaint also instead relies on the Privacy Act — alleging the federal government, with various degrees of liability, inadequately managed databases and then promoted intentionally false records.

“Defendants’ maintenance of inaccurate, irrelevant, untimely, and/or incomplete personnel records caused them to terminate Plaintiffs’ employment, supposedly based on poor job performance, which was an adverse determination,” one count explains. “Following Plaintiffs’ terminations, Defendants have further maintained inaccurate, irrelevant, untimely, and/or incomplete personnel records related to the unlawful terminations.”

Another count explains, at length:

When NOAA, on behalf of Commerce, disseminated termination notices stating that Plaintiffs’ terminations were based on performance, those were inaccurate records about individuals.

When NOAA, on behalf of Commerce, disseminated [form letters] stating that Plaintiffs’ terminations were based on performance, those were inaccurate records about individuals.

On information and belief, Commerce and NOAA knew that these records were inaccurate—or otherwise had not undertaken reasonable efforts to verify their accuracy — and disseminated them anyway.Commerce and NOAA acted intentionally and/or willfully.

The plaintiffs are also seeking class certification — an effort that, if successful, could result in a large price tag should the lawsuit succeed.