More than six months after being terminated from her job with the federal government, Jessie Beck got the news she'd been hoping for — sort of.
On Sept. 12, U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued his final decision in a case challenging the Trump administration's mass firings of probationary employees, mostly those in their first year or two on the job.
In a 38-page order, Alsup wrote that the terminations, dating back to February, were unlawful. But he stopped short of requiring the government to reinstate workers. It was clear to him, he explained, that the Supreme Court would overrule such relief given recent decisions the court had issued on related matters. He also wrote that too much time had passed.
"The terminated probationary employees have moved on with their lives and found new jobs," Alsup wrote. "Many would no longer be willing or able to return to their posts."
Beck, who was a fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says that is simply not true.
"Immediately, I would return to my job, as would many, many others," she says. "We loved our jobs. We worked really hard to be there. And a lot of us have found short-term or other work to fill that gap. But a lot of us have also taken pay cuts to do so and really have suffered a lot of damage to our careers."
While Beck says it's validating to read that Alsup found malfeasance in the government's actions, she's extremely frustrated that the relief he offered was so limited.
"I think that from the outset, Judge Alsup really had his hands tied," she says. "It seems like the judicial process is being undermined by a higher court."
A victory in court offers little meaningful relief
Through multiple decisions issued on its shadow docket, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has made clear it believes the Constitution gives the president expansive powers over the executive branch, including the power to hire and fire as he sees fit, despite federal law granting civil servants, including probationary employees, some job protections.
Alsup has clearly taken notice. In April, the court vacated his temporary pause on the probationary firings, leading him to remark the next day in court, "They are the boss. I'm just a district judge."
Although the Supreme Court's shadow docket orders are themselves meant to be temporary, Alsup wrote "the Supreme Court has made clear enough by way of its emergency docket that it will overrule judicially granted relief respecting hirings and firings within the executive, not just in this case but in others."
The result for fired employees like Beck is deeply unsatisfying. In the end, the government got to fire her and thousands of others, despite a court's finding that it was illegal. The Trump administration has appealed Alsup's decision.
Pushed into a tough job market
Beck was ten months into her job at NOAA when she was fired on February 27 as part of the Trump administration's purge of probationary workers. She had been working with fisheries in Alaska to find ways to reduce harm to seabirds while not harming the bottom line of fishing communities.
She had come to the government after more than a decade doing related work at a nonprofit, because she wanted a more direct role in figuring out solutions to conservation challenges.
Now, she's struggling to get her career back on track. Under the Trump administration, there have been deep cuts to funding for science, and the market is flooded with qualified candidates searching for jobs.
At 38, Beck has been piecing together short-term work, but it's not enough to make up for what she lost. She and her husband were trying to have a child when she got fired, and she says her financial instability is making that all the more difficult.
"It's been a real lesson in living in uncertainty," she says.
His skills were in demand, but now he's struggling to find work
A federal employee fired from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is likewise still grappling with the consequences of his termination.
At 50, the health care technology expert has been unable to land a new job. He has gotten some initial interviews only to be told the companies are not interested in moving forward with him. Sometimes he hears nothing at all. NPR agreed not to name him, because he fears speaking out publicly could further complicate his efforts to get another job.
Meanwhile, his attempts to get unemployment insurance through the state of New York, where he worked, have gone nowhere. Online, he sees that his claim is "under review." He's tried calling 20 or 25 times in hopes of reaching someone who can help.
"Nobody's available to talk to you," he says. "The phone gets disconnected."
It's a trying situation for someone whose decades of experience in health care IT appeared highly prized as recently as last year. When he was hired by the government in 2024, he was told he was one of 1,300 applicants for three positions.
"I was totally enjoying it, doing some meaningful work," the former government employee says. He'd received a strong performance review in January, shortly before he was fired.
He was looking forward to finding ways to use artificial intelligence to find inaccuracies in clinical data. Now, he's not sure whether someone else will pick up the work. He only knows with Alsup's order, it's not going to be him.
A judge highly critical of the Trump administration's actions
Since February, Alsup has been highly critical of the government, calling the mass firing of probationary employees for performance reasons "a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements" for downsizing the government. At times, he questioned whether government lawyers were telling him the truth.
Back in March, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt released a statement, accusing the judge of "attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch," and inviting him to run for president himself.
In his Sept. 12 order, Alsup again chastised the government, this time for failing to produce key documents and records as required by the court, frustrating the judicial review process.
"The 'administrative record' leaves the reader with the feeling that he is being led, blindfolded, along a carefully plotted path through a dense, unseen wood," Alsup wrote. "Here and there, he may hear a rustle in the trees, feel the dark silhouette of a towering form, or intuit some other hint at the forest beyond, but never is he afforded an unfettered view of the landscape through which he passes."
An order to set the record straight on performance
While the relief Alsup ordered fell far short of what Beck, the fisheries biologist, had hoped for, she is glad that he has ordered agencies to make clear, in official paperwork and letters to fired employees, that their terminations had nothing to do with their performance.
Alsup first ordered agencies to issue such a letter months ago, after finding that agencies had not actually assessed the individual performance of employees before firing them. He said without such letters, the employees may be dogged by questions over their job performance.
"Countless high-performing employees… were terminated through a lie," he wrote in an April 18 order. "Termination under the false pretense of performance is an injury that will persist for the working life of each civil servant."
In the months that followed, Beck received two letters from the government — first, a form letter, and later, a similar one that included her name. She calls them "the apology/non-apology."
The letters, indeed, say that she was not terminated because of her performance. The letters also say that the government is only providing such notice due to a court order, and that the government believes the order is "legally and factually erroneous" and therefore is appealing it.
This time, Alsup has given federal agencies until Nov. 14 to reissue the letters, without all the disclaimers.
"There is no need to lard the letters with such distractions," Alsup wrote.
The government has appealed Alsup's final order to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Meanwhile, Beck wonders if she'll forever have a mark on her record.
"It's going to make it difficult to explain to future employers outside of the government and will absolutely make it difficult to get another federal job," she says.
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