The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, has set out to impose upon American society and the US government a white, Christian nationalist, patriarchal society with fixed gender roles. To this end, between 2020 and 2024, it collaborated with 140+ former, and now some current, Trump officials to write a 900-page blueprint for rapidly dismantling multiple federal agencies and eliminating federal civil protections for women, people of color, and LGBTQI+ people. This plan is Project 2025.
Despite disavowing any knowledge of Project 2025 during his successful presidential campaign, since his inauguration on January 20, 2025, President Trump has deliberately staffed his administration, cabinet positions and political appointments with Project 2025 believers, like: Russell Vought, lead architect of Project 2025 and now Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB); Stephen Miller, Deputy Policy and Homeland Security Adviser, and Elon Musk, former head of the illegally formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE.)
With this team in place, the Trump administration has made “dismantling the administrative state,” a core conservative goal, the central tenet of its administration. Following the blueprint laid out in Section 1, Part 3 of Project 2025, titled “Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy,” it has eliminated, gutted, or suffered massive workforce reductions exceeding 40% to approximately 15-20 Departments and agencies, with other significant cuts for seven more. In addition, Trump has fundamentally weakened protections for federal workers. As Russell Vought stated, the objective is to put the 2.3 million + federal workers, 47% of whom are women, “in trauma” and ensure they don’t “want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”
Why Federal Jobs Matter: Consequences for Women
As Project 2025 has become a reality across the federal government, women—especially women of color—are losing the pathway to middle-class economic security as crucial advantages that federal employment has provided are being stripped away.
Pay Equity:
- Federal: Women earned 95 cents per dollar that men earned
- Private sector: Women earned only 83 cents per dollar
Job Security:
- Federal positions: 12 years average tenure
- Private sector workers: 4 years average tenure
Benefits:
- Union representation protecting against discrimination
- Paid parental leave
- Flexible scheduling
- Robust health insurance and leave
Eviscerating the Federal Workforce
With the creation of the illegal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, a private citizen and the wealthiest man on earth, The Trump administration’s dismantling of the “administrative state” began.
Under Russell Vought’s oversight, DOGE orchestrated the eradication of multiple agencies and programs, including mass layoffs and firings– 212,000-317,000 federal workers to date – that have disproportionately impacted women. It targeted agencies with majority-female workforces—Veterans’ Affairs, 64%; Education, 63%; Treasury, 61%; Housing and Urban Development, 59%; and Health and Human Services, 52%.
Using The October 2025 Shutdown as a Weapon
Traditionally, during a federal government shutdown, federal agencies do not lay off people. However, when the government shut down on October 1, 2025, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued unprecedented guidance exempting Reduction in Force (RIF) procedures from shutdown restrictions—a move legal experts called unlawful. With this “cover,” Vought orchestrated the distribution of over 4,100 RIF notices to federal employees with Trump openly stating he was going after “Democrat Agencies”—agencies with diverse, female-majority workforces focused on civil rights, education, healthcare, and social services.
After 43 days—the most extended shutdown in U.S. history—Congress passed legislation that:
- Reversed all October RIF notices (approximately 4,200 employees)
- Banned new layoffs through January 30, 2026
- Guaranteed back pay for all federal employees
And, left the administration free to resume layoffs in February 2026.
Weakening Protections for Federal Workers
To make it easier to fire federal workers, arguing that managers are discouraged from honest performance evaluations because they can be “accused of racial or sexual discrimination”—a position that ignores documented discrimination patterns against women of color– the Trump Administration is following the Project 2025 blueprint for systematically weakening long-fought-for protections for federal workers.
Eliminated Collective Bargaining Rights
Through Executive Orders, the Trump administration has dismantled collective bargaining rights for over 1 million federal workers—representing 84% of the unionized federal workforce. Claiming that virtually all major federal agencies have “national security” functions, Trump terminated union contracts despite ongoing litigation– the most significant act of union-busting in American history.
Eradicated DEI Programs and Fired Their Staff Across All Agencies
Over the past six decades, through successive presidential executive orders, the 1960s affirmative action policies, created to address historical and systemic racial and gender inequities, have evolved into diversity, equity and inclusion( DEI) programs.
Seeking to tackle continuing racial and gender inequality within the federal government, Biden, on his first day as President, established comprehensive DEI programs across all federal agencies.Trump, calling DEI discriminatory and wasteful, on his second day in office dismantled these programs, ordering the elimination of all DEI positions, programs, and policies within 60 days, and demanded new DEI guidelines.
Written by the Attorney General and the OPM Acting Director under OMB Director Russell Vought’s guidance, the new DEI guidelines stipulate that any consideration of race, sex, or other protected characteristics in employment decisions violates Title VII, reversing 65 years of EEOC guidance and court precedent.
Devastated the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
On January 27, 2025, citing support for DEI as justification, President Trump fired EEOC Commissioners Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows—the first time in the agency’s 61-year history that a president attempted to remove sitting commissioners before their 5-year terms expired. Commissioner Samuels sued in the DC District Court on April 9, 2025, arguing Congress established staggered five-year terms to ensure “continuity, stability, and insulation from political pressure.” Her case is on hold, waiting for a ruling on Trump’s Motion to Dismiss.
With only two EEOC commissioners (down from five), the three-member quorum needed to make policy decisions has been eliminated, making it impossible for the EEOC to issue new guidance, approve systemic discrimination cases, or make major enforcement decisions.
While the agency’s 53 field offices continue to operate and investigate individual complaints, with an 11% reduction in its workforce since late 2024– 2,246 to approximately 2,000 (May 2025)—and an additional decrease down to 1,770 expected by Fall 2026 (a 45-year low), women workers have effectively been stripped of their primary federal defender against workplace discrimination.
The Legal Battle:
The Supreme Court Enables an Unrestrained Unitary Executive
AFGE v. Trump (July 8, 2025): U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued an injunction blocking layoffs at 22 agencies, ruling: “Congress creates federal agencies,
funds them, and gives them duties. Agencies may not conduct large-scale reorganizations in blatant disregard of Congress’s mandates.”
The Supreme Court disagreed, permitting the Trump administration to proceed with the layoffs and restructuring, despite the lack of congressional authorization. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented: “This Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball.”
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, the case was returned by the Ninth Circuit to Judge Illston for consideration as of December 2025.
Trump v. CASA (June 27, 2025): The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that nationwide injunctions by district courts “likely exceed the equitable authority” Congress granted them. However, Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s footnote preserved judges’ ability to issue broad injunctions in Administrative Procedure Act cases involving unions with nationwide membership.
Laid-Off Employees: In March 2025, federal district court judges in California and Maryland ordered the reinstatement of tens of thousands of probationary and non-probationary federal employees (24,000-30,000+). On April 8, 2025, the Supreme Court blocked the reinstatement orders, allowing the firings to proceed.
The Fallout for Women in Trump’s Reduction of the Federal Workforce
In March 2025, at the height of DOGE’s dismantling program, the Trump administration removed current and historic diversity data—including race and ethnicity indicators—from the OPM’s public data website, making it impossible to track the exact gender and racial composition of the federal workers who have departed.
Nevertheless, the pattern is clear: agencies with majority-female workforces and high concentrations of women of color, particularly Black women, have faced the deepest cuts. Thus, all available evidence indicates women—particularly Black women—have borne a disproportionate share of the 212,000-317,000 departures since January 20, 2025.
Pregnancy and Caregiving Discrimination Have Increased
Erin Morris of the National Women’s Law Center reports: “People who are expecting a baby—when stable income is critical—are being terminated, reversed by court order, then terminated again—all while they have a baby on the way.”
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a federal union, notes women returning from parental leave have been fired and asked to repay their leave,” with no recourse.
The elimination of telework policies and return-to-office mandates has particularly impacted caregivers—overwhelmingly women—who cannot easily relocate or change their care-taking arrangements.
In addition, with human resources departments gutted across agencies, pregnant workers and those needing reasonable accommodations find their requests unanswered.
The Resistance Goes On
Despite Supreme Court setbacks, resistance continues:
In the Courts:
- Ongoing litigation preserves the ability to challenge specific illegal actions
- New discrimination lawsuit could expose targeting of DEI workers
- Discovery battles may reveal unlawful RIF plans.
- Commissioner Samuels’ lawsuit challenging presidential removal power is ongoing
In Congress:
- Congress prohibited shutdown RIFs in the October funding legislation
- The House passed a bill (the first time the House voted to overturn a Trump executive order) to restore collective bargaining rights (pending Senate passage)
Through Unions:
- The two federal employee unions, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), have successfully obtained multiple court orders
Among Federal Employees:
- Despite relentless and unprecedented upheaval, career federal employees persevere and continue their work
Conclusion: An Attack on Women’s Economic Rights
As the Trump administration dismantles the administrative state, following the blueprint laid out by Project 2025 Section 1, Part 3, it has launched a calculated assault on women’s economic independence. By targeting agencies with majority-female workforces, eliminating DEI protections, weakening union rights, and removing civil service protections, the administration is decimating the very services on which women and their families rely and systematically reversing decades of progress toward workplace equity, a critical underpinning of women’s financial independence.
While litigation continues, courts have proven limited in their ability to stop this transformation. Despite the separation of powers, the Supreme Court has given this presidency almost boundless power without Congressional restraint. It is allowing the federal workforce—once a model employer for women seeking fair treatment and economic security—to be remade as a politically loyal force serving a narrow ideological agenda.
For feminist organizations and advocates, what is happening to women in the federal workforce is not merely an employment issue. It is a fundamental attack on women’s economic rights, financial independence, professional opportunities, and the principle that the government should serve all people equally.
To learn more about how critical women’s financial independence is to their full equality, please watch Stand UP, Speak OUT Episode 1: Equal Pay for Equal Work.
National Women’s Law Center, Project 2025: What It Means for Women, Families, and Gender Justice
Ms. Magazine, Misogynist Manifesto
For litigation updates: Democracy Forward , AFGE , Just Security, Project 2025 Tracker
