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Shaun Southworth leading a federal employment training session with members of the Southworth PC team
 

CDC Telework Accommodations and Disability Rights

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For many federal employees with disabilities, telework is not a preference. It is the difference between being able to perform the essential functions of a job and being pushed out...

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OPM Health Data and Federal Employee Privacy

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Federal employees have reason to feel uneasy right now. The identity-theft protection offered after the 2015 OPM breach is beginning to expire, ten years after enrollment, even tho...

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FEMA Restructuring and Federal Employee Rights

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The FEMA Review Council’s final report uses unusually stark language: it recommends that the government “close the chapter” on FEMA as federal employees know it. For career civil s...

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NIH Word-Scanning and Federal Employee Rights

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Recent reporting from Government Executive says NIH employees are being required to run grant applications and progress reports through a text analysis tool that flags terms associ...

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Federal Worker Credit Protection Act Explained

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A missed credit card payment can feel personal, even when the cause was completely outside your control. For federal employees affected by the 76-day DHS shutdown, the harm was not...

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Federal Employee DOGE Email Responses Show Dignity and Professionalism

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Many federal employees remember the February 2025 “what did you do last week” email not as a routine workplace request, but as a moment of shock. According to the transcript, feder...

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Federal Employees Deserve Recognition Without Fear

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The Service to America Medals—the “Sammies”—have long been treated as the Oscars of federal service. This year’s 25th annual ceremony carried a quieter message: many federal employ...

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RIF Separation and Federal Hiring Rights

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Federal employees who have been separated through a reduction in force often carry more than a job loss. They carry the fear that future agencies will quietly treat the RIF as a ma...

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State Department RIFs: Appeal Rights for Feds

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For many federal employees, reduction-in-force notices have felt suspended in uncertainty: issued, delayed, litigated, and left unresolved. At the Department of State, that uncerta...

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Federal Employees and Off-Duty Free Speech

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Federal employees do not stop being citizens when they leave the workplace. That principle matters when an employee attends a public vigil, speaks on a matter of public concern, an...

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When Security Duties Become Career-Risk Moments

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Alexis Goldstein’s reported firing from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau raises a hard question for federal employees: what happens when the duty to safeguard government in...

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FEMA’s CORE Rehiring Is More Than a Staffing Story

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FEMA’s reported effort to bring back disaster-response workers whose CORE appointments were not renewed is not just an agency-management headline. It is a reminder that federal emp...

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The Mindful Federal Employee is part of a broader public-education ecosystem from Shaun Southworth, Lydia Taylor, and Southworth PC. Use the resource that fits the question and the moment.

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Civil Rights for Civil Servants

Hear Shaun Southworth and Lydia Taylor explain federal employee rights, public service, workplace systems, and the people navigating them.

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About the people behind the work

Shaun Southworth & Lydia Taylor

Meet the federal employment attorneys behind this public-education work and the podcast Civil Rights for Civil Servants.

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