Civil Service Test May Return as Trump Allies Eye Bias Standard

The Trump administration ended a 44-year-old legal agreement that barred a civil service exam for federal jobs, potentially reviving a practice once deemed discriminatory.

The US Department of Justice announced recently it would abandon the consent decree in Luévano v. Campbell, a 1981 deal that prompted the White House personnel office to end standardized testing for federal jobs. An administration official said the decree limited the government’s hiring practices “based on flawed and outdated theories of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

“For over four decades, this decree has hampered the federal government from hiring the top talent of our nation,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

It’s another step in President Donald Trump’s efforts to remake the federal workforce by ending what the administration views as DEI hiring practices and some anti-discrimination policies. He’s chipped away at protections for key federal officials once considered independent from the executive branch, instituted new hiring practices across agencies, and blamed tragedies such as the January plane crash at Washington Reagan National Airport on diversity-based hiring.

The Luévano case was filed in 1979—long before DEI was ubiquitous—and accused the federal Professional and Administrative Career Examination, PACE, of discriminating against non-White applicants. The consent decree prompted the government to end the test for new hires.

Disparate Impact

Angel Luévano, the lead plaintiff in that case, said in an interview he supported the Trump administration’s request for a federal judge in Washington to nullify the pact in order to stop the president’s lawyers from using his case to challenge other pillars of equal employment opportunity in government.

He said the move denies the government and its allies an opportunity to challenge disparate impact discrimination—the idea that unequal outcomes can amount to bias in instances such as housing and hiring, even if the policies don’t intentionally discriminate.

“I did agree to the stipulation, but only because I wanted to stop any bad law under this administration, Luévano said. “Other parties were trying to intervene and expand the scope of the decree.”

Judge Reggie Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, accepted the stipulation and dismissed the case on Aug. 1.

The Trump administration for months has been moving away from using disparate impact to enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act and other anti-bias laws. The president in April ordered federal agencies enforcing anti-discrimination laws to eliminate their use of the disparate impact legal theory.

Allies of the administration were preparing to use Luévano’s case to challenge unintentional bias claims in federal hiring. America First Legal—the group co-founded by senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller that has brought numerous lawsuits against public and private organizations alleging discriminatory DEI—had filed a motion to intervene in the case.

An attorney for the group said they sought to use the case to challenge disparate impact claims brought under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Such a ruling would make it harder for future administrations to revive the practice.

The consent decree “has worked for over 40 years to make the federal government less effective and less capable of hiring based on merit alone,” Nick Barry, senior counsel for America First Legal, said in a statement. “The Trump Administration has achieved a great win for the American People here, and we are happy to have been able to help.”

PACE History

Luévano, who is Mexican American, brought the lawsuit in 1979 after failing to get referred for a job at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He had taken the PACE, and by his account, scored relatively well. He had already interned for the federal government while in law school.

“I felt I was qualified, and I can’t even get my foot in the door,” Luévano said. “I thought, if this is happening to me, it is definitely happening to others.”

There is no widespread civil service test today, though that could change now that the consent decree is no longer in force. The Office of Personnel Management hasn’t said whether it plans to revive an exam, and didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Barry suggested his group would try to revive a test, calling the demise of the consent decree “a major step toward restoring merit-based hiring.”

Luévano, now 75, said he and his lawyers will try to fight any test that creates discriminatory outcomes.

“The challenges will continue,” he said. “But I don’t know if I’ll be alive to see the resolution of all of them.”