“Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” is a blog series documenting the harmful impact of President Trump’s judges on Americans’ rights and liberties. It includes judges nominated in both his first and second terms.
Trump Fourth Circuit judge Allison Rushing cast the deciding vote in a 2-1 ruling that reversed a lower court and upheld Trump’s firing of some 25,000 probationary federal employees in 20 states without the notice that the states contend they were owed under federal law. Biden nominee Judge DeAndrea Benjamin dissented from the September 2025 decision in State of Maryland v Department of Agriculture.
What happened in this case?
Immediately after his second inauguration as President, Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders that led to the firing of hundreds of thousands of federal employees. These included some 25,000 probationary employees in 19 states plus the District of Columbia.
These states filed suit in federal court, challenging the method by which the firings took place, contending that the affected states did not receive the 60 days advance notice required by federal law governing mass reductions in force. This lack of notice, they contended, caused “real harm with significant adverse effects.” As the district court found in granting a preliminary injunction in favor of the states, these effects included an increase in “resources required to investigate” the “influx in unemployment benefit applications,” “unanticipated loss of tax revenue,” “additional financial and labor costs associated with the sudden strain placed on rapid response programs without advance notice,” and comparable costs.
The district court entered a preliminary injunction against the government agencies, requiring that improperly terminated probationary employees be at least temporarily reinstated and that no additional probationary employees be fired without the required notice. The district court declined to stay the injunction and the government defendants went to the Fourth Circuit.
How did Trump judge Rushing and the Fourth Circuit majority rule and why is the result harmful?
Trump judge Rushing cast the deciding vote in favor of an opinion by conservative Reagan nominee J. Harvie Wilkinson holding that the states did not have standing to challenge the firing of the probationary employees. As a result, they maintained, the preliminary injunction should be dissolved and the case should be dismissed altogether.
Judge Benjamin strongly dissented. Based on the record in the case and past precedent, she explained, the states clearly had standing to “challenge the process by which the Government has engaged in mass firings.” As the district court had ruled, the federal government’s failure to provide proper notice before the firing of the employees caused significant harm to the states. Benjamin refused to “endorse the Government’s attempt to circumvent our Nation’s laws” and dissented.
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The validity of Trump’s mass firings of these 25,000 federal employees will likely come up in other courts, either in the full Fourth Circuit, the Supreme Court, or other courts where the employees themselves have brought claims. For now, however, the decision in this case clearly harms these employees as well as the states in which they have worked. In addition, the decision illustrates the importance of our federal courts to health, welfare and justice and the significance of having fair-minded judges on the federal bench.