Attorneys for Federal Employees — Nationwide
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Today at a Glance
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OPM Drops the Disparate-Impact Hiring Framework: OPM issued an interim final rule stripping the 1978 Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures from federal hiring regulations, effective immediately, following a DOJ opinion calling the framework unconstitutional.
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FEMA's Workforce Cuts Came Without a Plan, GAO Finds: A new GAO audit found FEMA cut roughly 4,500 employees over 18 months with no assessment of mission needs, hitting FEMA's regional offices harder than its Washington headquarters.
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Education Department Moves 64 More Employees to Other Agencies: AFGE says the latest transfers to Interior, State, and Labor are illegal, and the union filed an OSHA complaint over working conditions for employees relocated into the Labor Department's building.
Top Stories:
1. OPM Ends the Federal Government's Disparate-Impact Hiring Check — Aligning With a DOJ Opinion That Called It Unconstitutional
Source: Federal News Network, August 4, 2026
TL;DR: The Office of Personnel Management issued an interim final rule last week eliminating the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP) from federal personnel regulations governing how agencies build and validate hiring assessments. UGESP has set the federal government's standard since 1978 for testing whether a hiring assessment creates an unintended “disparate impact” on applicants based on race, sex, or other protected characteristics. The rule removes UGESP references from the regulation defining basic requirements for hiring assessments (5 C.F.R. § 300.103) and from the category-rating regulation (5 C.F.R. § 337.303). It took effect immediately, though OPM is accepting public comments for 60 days. The change follows a June 9, 2026 opinion from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel concluding that UGESP is unlawful because it evaluates only statistical disparate impact without considering an employer's intent, which DOJ says pressures employers toward race-based hiring decisions to avoid liability. OPM Director Scott Kupor said the change “ensures OPM's regulations reflect legal guidance while preserving the rigorous, job-related standards” agencies use to hire. The Partnership for Public Service's Jenny Mattingley countered that UGESP gave applicants who felt an assessment was biased “a mechanism to actually question, through the EEOC, the hiring practices of an organization.”
For federal employees, this means:
- Applicants and internal candidates for competitive promotions are both affected, since UGESP applied to any formal selection procedure, not just entry-level hiring.
- Agencies still say they are responsible for building assessments that are job-related and free of prohibited discrimination, but they no longer have the specific UGESP validation methodology as a regulatory checkpoint.
- Title VII itself is unchanged, so if you believe a hiring assessment produced a disparate impact based on a protected characteristic, an EEO complaint remains available — but building the record now falls more heavily on you.
Legal Insight
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16, still prohibits disparate-impact discrimination in federal employment; OPM's rule removes an internal validation framework, not the underlying discrimination law. A federal applicant or employee who believes a selection procedure disadvantaged them because of race, sex, national origin, religion, age, or disability should preserve the 45-day EEO counselor-contact clock under 29 C.F.R. § 1614.105(a)(1), since that deadline runs from when the applicant knew or reasonably should have known of the effect. If you believe a hiring or promotion assessment treated you unfairly, talk to a federal employment attorney before the 45-day window closes.
2. FEMA Cut 4,500 Employees With No Workforce Plan — and Its Regional Offices Took the Deepest Hit, GAO Finds
Source: Federal News Network, August 4, 2026
TL;DR: A new Government Accountability Office report found that FEMA lost about 4,500 employees over the past 18 months, mostly through voluntary deferred-resignation and early-retirement programs, without the agency ever assessing its current or future workforce needs. GAO found FEMA rescinded its four-year strategic plan last spring and has not issued a replacement, leaving officials without a framework to evaluate staffing levels across the agency's more than 20 workforce specialties. The cuts landed unevenly: most of FEMA's 10 regional offices lost 9% or more of their staff between January 2025 and January 2026, compared to roughly 5% at FEMA headquarters in Washington. FEMA also lost 58 senior executive service employees during that period — about half the agency's SES workforce — compared to an average of 13 SES departures in each of the prior three years. GAO warned that further delay in strategic workforce planning “leaves FEMA at risk of being unprepared and under-resourced” to meet its statutory disaster-response duties. FEMA told GAO it will not develop a new workforce plan until a confirmed administrator is in place; the Senate is expected to act on a nominee before its August recess.
For federal employees, this means:
- FEMA employees, particularly in the regions, are operating with less institutional knowledge and more staff serving in acting leadership roles, which GAO found is already affecting some regions' disaster-response readiness.
- The workforce reductions were processed as voluntary separations and, in some cases, probationary terminations rather than a formal reduction in force, so many affected employees did not receive RIF notice, retention-register standing, or appeal rights.
- GAO is recommending Congress require FEMA to report on its workforce planning before each hurricane season, a reporting lever employees and their unions can point to when raising staffing concerns.
Legal Insight
Federal workforce-planning obligations trace to the Chief Human Capital Officers Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 1401–1402, and to the merit system principle that agencies manage their workforce efficiently and effectively, 5 U.S.C. § 2301(b)(1). GAO conducted this review under its statutory audit authority, 31 U.S.C. § 712. Because these departures were voluntary or occurred during a probationary period, most affected employees fall outside the formal reduction-in-force protections of 5 C.F.R. Part 351 — a distinction worth understanding before accepting a deferred-resignation or early-retirement offer at an agency undergoing workforce cuts.
3. Education Department Transfers 64 More Employees — AFGE Calls It Illegal and Files an OSHA Complaint
Source: Federal News Network, August 4, 2026
TL;DR: The Education Department transferred 64 more employees out of its K-12, special education, and career, technical, and adult education programs to other federal agencies, according to AFGE Local 252, which represents Education Department employees. The union says 10 Native education employees moved to the Interior Department, two postsecondary education employees moved to the State Department, and 52 employees from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Office of Postsecondary Education moved to the Labor Department. AFGE Local 252 is calling the transfers illegal and part of the administration's broader effort to dismantle the Education Department, which Congress has continued to fund as a standalone agency. The union also filed an Occupational Safety and Health Administration complaint over working conditions for roughly 60 Education Department employees the union says were moved into the Labor Department's building under what it calls unlawful and inefficient interagency agreements. AFGE says at least 130 more employees from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education could be moved to Labor in the coming months under a separate interagency agreement. The Education Department has continued this pattern of reassigning employees and programs to other agencies since its broader restructuring effort began in 2025.
For federal employees, this means:
- If your position is being moved to another agency through an interagency agreement rather than a formal reduction in force, ask whether the move should have triggered transfer-of-function RIF procedures, which carry retention and notice rights an informal reassignment does not.
- Employees who file an OSHA safety or working-conditions complaint are protected from retaliation for having raised it, independent of how the underlying reassignment dispute is resolved.
- Congress, not an agency reorganization, holds the authority to abolish or restructure a cabinet department, so a transfer of statutory functions without new legislation remains open to legal challenge.
Legal Insight
The Education Department's statutory functions are assigned by the Department of Education Organization Act, 20 U.S.C. §§ 3401–3510, and moving those functions to another agency through an interagency agreement under the Economy Act, 31 U.S.C. § 1535, does not by itself repeal that statutory assignment or its appropriation. Employees whose positions move without a formal reduction in force should examine whether the transfer meets the definition of a “transfer of function” under 5 C.F.R. Part 351, Subpart C, which would entitle them to RIF notice and retention rights that an informal reassignment does not provide. Separately, an employee who raises a safety or working-conditions complaint with OSHA is protected from retaliation under 29 U.S.C. § 660(c). If your position has been or may be moved to another agency, talk to a federal employment attorney about whether your RIF rights were honored.
Legal Tip of the Day
When You’re Placed on Administrative Leave
Being placed on administrative leave or told to leave the workplace can feel frightening and embarrassing. Ask for written instructions about pay status, duty status, communication limits, access to systems, timekeeping, and whether you may contact coworkers. Save the notice and make a private timeline of what happened before and after the action. Do not delete files, contact potential witnesses, or try to investigate the situation on your own. Also do not assume administrative leave automatically means removal is coming; it may be part of an investigation or review process.
In Case You Missed It
A few quick hits from our recent posts:
Senate Passes Its Own Funding Bill 89-4: What Changed, and What Didn't
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Forced Agency Relocations: What the Law Requires When You Cannot Move
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Disclaimer:
This briefing is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney‑client relationship. Federal employment law is fact‑specific and time‑sensitive; you should consult a qualified attorney about your own situation and deadlines. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
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