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

Federal Scientists, Orders, and Whistleblower Rights

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Federal employees, especially scientists, often work in environments where technical judgment carries public consequences. The recent CNN report involving EPA scientists raises a d...

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White House App Order: Legal Risks for Feds

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For federal employees, a government-issued phone is not personal space. It is federal property, controlled by agency IT rules, security policies, and ethics obligations. That is wh...

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GAO, DOGE, and Federal Employee Data Rights

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Federal employees have reason to pay close attention when the Government Accountability Office investigates access to agency databases. GAO is not a political commentator. It is Co...

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Schedule Policy/Career Risks for Federal Employees

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If you are a federal employee, the past few days are not just political theater. They implicate civil service protections, paycheck stability, and your ability to raise concerns wi...

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The Government Admitted It Lost Track of Social Security Data

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Most Americans trust that their Social Security information is protected by some of the strictest safeguards in the federal government. Recent court filings, however, reveal a trou...

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DOJ Memo Tells Auditors to Ignore PREA Protections

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A leaked Department of Justice memo has left many federal employees, especially those in corrections, law enforcement, and oversight roles, asking the same anxious question: What h...

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CDC Workforce Purge: Reform or Retaliation?

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has lost roughly a third of its workforce in just eight months. According to recent reporting, the Department of Health and Human Ser...

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Can the President Order Military Strikes on Drug Boats?

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Since early September, reports have surfaced of U.S. military strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. The White House has justified the acti...

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When Leadership Feels Like Liability in Federal Service

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A New York Times story this week described how Black community leaders are holding their ground in a political climate that often treats their leadership as a threat. Reading it, I...

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Trump-Era Layoffs and the Future of the Federal Workforce

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This week, Politico confirmed what many federal employees have been experiencing firsthand: sweeping staff cuts across the government. Nearly 200,000 federal workers are gone in 20...

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BLS Firing Raises Alarms for Federal Employee Protections

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Late Friday, Presidentially appointed economist Dr. Erika McEntarfer was removed as head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)—just hours after releasing a jobs report the White ...

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VA Union Contracts Eliminated Overnight—Why It Matters Beyond the VA

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Late last night, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) canceled every major union contract covering more than 377,000 employees—nurses, doctors, benefits processors, and research...

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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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