Support Kevin's Fight Against Unlawful Termination

My best friend Kevin was illegally and unlawfully fired from his job with the federal government yesterday. If you hadn’t heard yet, there were mass terminations of hundreds of thousands of probationary federal employees. Please read his story below:

“I worked for the federal government for nearly 7 years. I had tenure; more than 3 of those years had been continuous permanent employment. I worked for a total of five federal agencies across three departments. However, because I had switched agencies less than a year ago and I have been at my current position for just short of a year, I was let go.

My probationary period was supposed to end on March 24, 2025. I had a single month left until I would have been safe from losing my career that I have poured my heart and soul into.

I am a victim of this administration’s vilification of federal employees and its gross overreach to restructure the government. This is an illegal and gross abuse of power, all under the guise of getting rid of government waste and inefficiency.

What happened to me and thousands of others is highly illegal. Regulations explicitly state that you cannot fire a probationary employee from the federal government without known cause. There must be justification that there is misconduct or that the employee is not meeting performance standards. I have never received a poor performance review. In fact, I was just given a monetary bonus, a cash award, for exceeding expectations in my position. I will be seeking legal recourse and joining a class action lawsuit.

My supervisor called me in the morning to notify me that OPM (Office of Personnel Management) was firing all probationary employees by the close of business and that I was one of them. After a meeting between the director of the agency and all probationary employees affected, they notified us that a blanket email of our termination would be sent in a couple of hours and that one hour after that, we would lose access to all electronic government systems. At 2:49 pm, my information was swiped from the Active Directory, and I was locked out of my computer. It was a very emotional day of grievance and saying goodbye to an incredible supervisor and team of co-workers.

I have always played by the rules, I have been a law-abiding citizen, and I have been a hard-working American. I never thought in a million years that something like this would happen to me.

I am (was) a Fish and Wildlife Biologist. I have been nothing short of a good steward to our land and its resources. I worked in the Ecological Services Program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Without getting too technical, I was a practitioner in Section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered Species Act, which is a legal and fancy way of saying I helped uphold and implement an act to protect threatened and endangered species from going extinct. I worked to protect these species, as well as the habitats they depend upon. I worked with other federal agencies and applicants to ensure their proposed actions that are federally funded, authorized, or carried out did not jeopardize the continued existence of federally-listed species or adversely modify designated critical habitat. It was good work and I was damn good at it.

I have dedicated my entire adult life to my career in the federal government. I have been a public servant to the American people, as well as a passionate steward of public lands that we all enjoy.

I did this type of work from the heart and spirit of my soul. You don’t pursue these kinds of opportunities for the money. In fact, conservation is one of the least lucrative fields and you do not get rich doing it. It takes a special kind of person to do what we do as biologists and natural resource specialists. I take great pride in my work. I helped carry out the conservation mission of this agency and this country. I worked to the best of my ability. I was a hard-working American. I did it to give a voice to plants and animals who can’t speak and advocate for themselves.

I will be grieving the loss over the next weeks and months. I will be going on unemployment, joining a class action lawsuit, and considering what steps I need to take to just simply survive. I have no idea what this means for my health insurance (which I really need) or the repercussions this will have on my retirement. Everything is up in the air right now.”