Schedule F: The Executive Order Designed to Strip Civil Service Protections from Tens of Thousands of Federal Workers and Enable a Political Purge of the Bureaucracy
Tier 3Ongoing2020-10-21 to 2026-04-09
Factual Summary
On October 21, 2020, less than two weeks before the 2020 presidential election, President Trump signed Executive Order 13957, creating a new employment classification called "Schedule F." The order directed the Office of Personnel Management to identify federal employees in "positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character" and reclassify them from competitive service positions with civil service protections into a new category that could be hired and fired at will. The order targeted career civil servants, not political appointees, and was designed to strip job protections from federal employees whose work involved policy implementation.
The scope was substantial. OPM estimated that approximately 50,000 positions, representing about 2 percent of the federal workforce, would be eligible for reclassification under the new category. These positions included career scientists, economists, policy analysts, attorneys, and other professional staff across every federal agency. The employees in these roles had previously been protected by civil service laws enacted in the late 19th century specifically to prevent the kind of political patronage and loyalty-based hiring that characterized the spoils system.
Trump lost the 2020 election before Schedule F could be fully implemented. No employees were actually reclassified under the original order. President Biden revoked Schedule F on January 22, 2021, the third day of his administration, through Executive Order 14003. Biden's OPM subsequently issued regulations intended to strengthen civil service protections and prevent a future president from reimposing a similar classification.
On January 20, 2025, his first day back in office, Trump signed Executive Order 14171, reinstating the Schedule F framework under a new name: "Schedule Policy/Career." The order directed agencies to identify positions for reclassification and to begin the process of converting career civil servants to at-will employment status. OPM again estimated approximately 50,000 affected positions.
Implementation proceeded through rulemaking. In February 2026, OPM moved to finalize regulations enabling reclassifications under the renamed program. The final regulations described existing civil service protections as "unconstitutional overcorrections" and asserted that the president had inherent authority to remove federal employees whose work touched on policy.
Federal employee unions, including the National Treasury Employees Union and the American Federation of Government Employees, challenged the order and subsequent regulations in court. The unions argued that Schedule F violated the merit-based principles of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 and subsequent civil service statutes, and that stripping protections from career employees would enable politically motivated firings, retaliation against whistleblowers, and the replacement of nonpartisan experts with political loyalists.
The practical effect of Schedule F, if fully implemented, would be to give the president and political appointees the power to fire career civil servants who resist or slow-walk policy directives. Supporters described this as necessary accountability. Critics, including constitutional scholars, former government officials, and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, described it as a mechanism for purging the federal workforce of career professionals whose expertise and institutional knowledge serve as a check on executive overreach.
The concept was closely associated with the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" planning effort, which described Schedule F as a central tool for reshaping the federal government in a second Trump term. Project 2025 documents explicitly discussed using the reclassification to remove career officials who might resist the administration's policy agenda and replace them with individuals loyal to the president.
Primary Sources
1. Executive Order 13957, "Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service," October 21, 2020
2. Executive Order 14003, "Protecting the Federal Workforce," January 22, 2021 (Biden revocation of Schedule F)
3. Executive Order 14171, "Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce," January 20, 2025 (Trump reinstatement)
4. OPM proposed and final regulations for Schedule Policy/Career reclassifications, 2025-2026
5. White House Fact Sheet: "President Donald J. Trump Creates New Federal Employee Category to Enhance Accountability," April 2025
Corroborating Sources
1. NPR: "Trump removes civil service protections with Schedule F plan," April 2025
2. CBS News: "Trump administration aims to reclassify some career civil servants so it's easier to fire them," 2025
3. Government Executive: "Final Schedule F regulations to describe civil service protections as 'unconstitutional overcorrections,'" November 2025
4. Government Executive: "Trump admin moves to finalize return of Schedule F," February 2026
5. Economic Policy Institute: "OPM finalizes regulation enabling firing federal employees for political reasons," 2025
6. Newsweek: "Trump Rule Makes It Easier To Fire Federal Workers," 2025
7. NTEU: "OPM Establishes Safeguards Against Schedule F" (Biden-era protections subsequently targeted for rollback)
Counterarguments and Context
The Trump administration argued that Schedule F addressed a genuine accountability problem in the federal government. Career civil servants in policy-influencing roles can effectively block or slow presidential policy priorities, and existing civil service protections make it extremely difficult to remove underperforming or obstructive employees. The White House described the reform as consistent with the president's constitutional authority to direct the executive branch and to ensure that policy implementation reflects the will of the elected president. Some conservative scholars argued that the expansion of civil service protections over the past century had created an unaccountable bureaucracy that operates independently of democratic control. The concept of at-will employment for policy-influencing positions has supporters among those who believe the federal workforce should be more responsive to presidential direction.
However, the civil service system was created specifically to replace the spoils system, in which each incoming president replaced government workers with political allies. The Pendleton Act and subsequent reforms established merit-based hiring and removal protections as safeguards against exactly the kind of political purge that Schedule F would enable. Career scientists, economists, and analysts provide expertise that transcends individual administrations. Their protections exist to ensure that their work is guided by professional standards rather than political loyalty. The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which explicitly described Schedule F as a tool for removing career officials who might resist the president's agenda, confirmed that the purpose was not merely accountability but the installation of a workforce that would carry out presidential directives without independent judgment. The framing of civil service protections as "unconstitutional overcorrections" in the final regulations represented a direct challenge to more than a century of statutory and institutional precedent.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 3 because the executive orders, OPM regulations, and Project 2025 planning documents are primary evidence that is publicly available. The scope of the reclassification (approximately 50,000 positions), the Biden revocation, and the Trump reinstatement are matters of documentary record. The legal challenges are pending in federal court. The interpretive debate about whether Schedule F represents necessary accountability or an abuse of presidential power involves normative judgments about the structure of the federal government, but the factual predicate for the entry is established through primary sources.