Free Republic

federal judge on Tuesday reinstated Cathy Harris, the Democrat chairwoman of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). “The mission of the MSPB is to “Protect the Merit System Principles and promote an effective Federal workforce free of Prohibited Personnel Practices.”” the agency’s website says. Cathy Harris was appointed to the MSPB in 2021 and her term was set to expire on March 1, 2028, but Trump fired her earlier this month. Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee with a history of anti-Trump bias, said Trump’s decision to fire Cathy Harris, a member of an agency in the executive branch, exceeded...

Professors from the University of Arizona and the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs are arguing that "success and merit" are "barriers" to the equity agenda.“Admitting that the normative definitions of success and merit are in and of themselves barriers to achieving the goals of justice, diversity, equity and inclusion is necessary but not sufficient to create change,” professors Beth Mitchneck and Jessi L. Smith recently wrote for Inside Higher Education.Mitchneck and Smith attributed those definitions to a "narrow definition of merit limited to a neoliberal view of the university." Specifically, they express concern that universities receive funding and recognition based...

The head of the Merit Systems Protection Board on Thursday warned federal employees that legislative efforts making it easier to fire workers at the Veterans Affairs Department soon could expand to include other agencies. “Today, it’s the VA. Tomorrow, it could be your agency,” said MSPB Chairman Susan Tsui Grundmann in a speech at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s EXCEL conference in Washington. Grundmann was referring to a 2014 law that allows the VA secretary to fire any Senior Executive Service employee immediately, and a bill passed by the House in July that would make it easier to fire all...