In a word: yes.
While the Civil Service System is supposed to be blind about hiring, it is not blind about promotions. For the last three generations or so, the entrenched leftists in government have been promoting according to ideology. . . and leaving those who do not meet their ideologically purity standards in dead end careers so they will leave government employment. Only those who meet their standards move up the career ladder in government bureaucracies.
Only outside "experts" who also meet the ideological requirements are hired to provide expert opinions on government projects, as determined by these bureaucrats. Grants are given preferentially to liberal/progressive ideologically correct organizations, researchers. Hiring is preferential from colleges/universities which are especially liberal/progressive. Just changing the political appointees heading these organizations will not change the entrenched workers who can prevent anything from changing.
That's why President Trump, in his State of the Union Speech, said to not be afraid to fire people . . . but it's really not as simple as that. . . again, because of those Civil Service Protections.
My aunt was the director of satellite image interpretation for the NSA 30 or more years ago. It was an important position. This woman was sent in as a Civil Service office worker. She showed up the first day, put a picture frame on her desk, took a coffee break, and never came back to work. It took my aunt over TWO YEARS to get this woman fired. Meanwhile, the woman was drawing a full pay check, took two vacations, full benefits, and THEN, after the fact of dismissal, filed a discrimination lawsuit against my aunt, claiming her firing was because she was black. In the second year of the effort, my aunt said she was spending up to 60% of her management time in the effort to get this woman discharged.
The Administrative Law Judge hearing the arbitration ordered the woman should receive an ADDITIONAL year of full pay and benefits, and be allowed to RETIRE at full pay—AFTER not even doing a single day of work (!)—due to being discriminated against by my aunt—who had NEVER, EVER SEEN HER—and only learned after the firing that she was black, as were better than 40% of the clerical employees in her office. My aunt took early retirement. . . because, she said, she heard other employees were considering taking a similar path to getting early retirement using the same approach as the woman had. My aunt said she could not stand the stress.
There-in lies the problem in laying any government employee off.
Q
“Minorities” do this in the private sector as well. Many a company has been sued for discrimination after firing a lazy and/or incompetent minority. Juicy out-of-court settlements are the rule.