A federal judge ruled July 1 that the HHS Department’s mass layoffs earlier this year were likely unlawful.
Three notes:
1. The HHS Department announced its plans in March to reduce the number of full-time employees from 82,000 to 62,000.
2. The layoffs resulted in the shuttering of the CDC’s oral health division.
3. A lawsuit filed in May on behalf of 19 states and the District of Columbia sought to block the layoffs, calling them an “unconstitutional and illegal dismantling of the department.”
3. U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose stated in the preliminary injunction that the state had shown the layoffs caused “irreparable harm,” and ordered the Trump administration to halt its plans to downsize the department.
