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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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One Hundred Officers, One Group Chat: The Lavender Scare and What Federal Employees Should Know Now
Federal employees in the intelligence community are watching a history they were told was closed. In February 2025, roughly one hundred transgender intelligence officers — three of...
Hatch Act Complaint Filed Against the Attorney General: What It Means for Career Federal Employees
The Hatch Act is the law most federal employees know by reputation and few know by text — and it is now at the center of a complaint against the nation’s top law enforcement office...
Your Free OPM Breach Identity Protection Ends September 30
Free identity protection from the 2015 OPM data breaches ends September 30, 2026, and roughly 22.1 million people are affected by that deadline. If you were a federal employee, app...
Three Doors: The Only Ways Your Rating of Record Can Change After It Is Issued
Your rating of record cannot be quietly changed after it is issued. Under the performance appraisal rule that took effect on August 6, 2026, there are exactly three ways a rating o...
Needed, But Not Named: When a Federal Detail Ends After Your Identity Goes Public
Losing a federal detail after your identity becomes public is not a personnel technicality — it can be sex discrimination under Title VII, and federal employees are covered. The qu...
DoD's New EEO Pilots: What Defense Employees Should Know Before They File
The Department of Defense EEO complaint process is changing, and Defense civilian employees should understand what is moving before they file. On August 17, 2026, Federal News Netw...
The Labor Department Wants AI to Triage Disability Accommodation Requests
A reasonable accommodation request should be answered by a person who understands your job and your limitations. At the Department of Labor, nearly a thousand employees are waiting...
The Loyalty Question and DoD’s Sealed Hiring Boards: What Federal Applicants Should Know
The loyalty question on federal job applications — the essay asking how you would help advance the President’s executive orders — now sits alongside a second change most applicants...
OPM Wants Your FEHB Medical Claims: What the New CRS Report Says
OPM’s request for FEHB medical claims data would place health information for more than eight million federal employees, retirees, and family members in the hands of the agency tha...
Reservist Differential Pay: Three Papers to Pull if You Were Activated Since 2009
Reservist differential pay is one of the quietest entitlements in federal employment, and if you are a federal employee who has been activated since 2009, there may be back pay sit...
MSPB Cuts RIF, Probationary, and Suitability Appeals From Its Rules — Effective September 2
MSPB appeal rights for reduction-in-force, probationary-termination, and suitability cases change on September 2, 2026 — and the most important sentence in the rule that changes th...
GAO Spent 14 Months Asking DOGE to Show the Math. DOGE Never Answered.
The GAO audit of DOGE's "Wall of Receipts" is finished, and the shortest way to describe it is this: DOGE said it saved you $110 billion, the Government Accountability Office asked...
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