Trump Strips Civil-Service Protections From About 8,000 Federal Jobs Under a Revived Schedule F

President Trump signed Executive Order 14410, 'Implementing Schedule Policy/Career in the Excepted Service,' on June 3, 2026. It moves roughly 8,000 career federal positions — those the administration classifies as confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating — out of the competitive service, reviving the Schedule F category created by Executive Order 13957 in 2020. About 97 percent of affected employees are GS-15s or senior leaders: office and division heads, chief information officers, program managers, regulatory writers, policy attorneys and senior grantmaking staff. The order says positions will still be filled on merit, but converted employees lose Merit Systems Protection Board appeal rights, and whistleblower complaints shift from the Office of Special Counsel to their own agencies. The appendix listing covered positions runs more than 200 Federal Register pages.

Those protections date to the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and are the main legal barrier between career expertise and removal for declining to carry out a directive.

Several federal employee unions sued, and the challenges were pending.