BREAKING: Legal BOMBSHELL alleges Trump systematically removed 75% of Black officials across government agencies.
In his quest to lower tax rates for billionaires, Donald Trump has been firing federal officials at a historic rate. But a new lawsuit reveals a pattern that goes beyond politics and cost-cutting: he’s been firing Black officials at a dramatically higher rate than anyone else — and replacing them with white people.
Alvin Brown, a Democratic member of the National Transportation Safety Board who was fired in May 2025, has filed suit in U.S. District Court alleging his termination was racially motivated — and his lawyers at the Democracy Forward Foundation have documented a pattern that is impossible to dismiss as a coincidence.
According to the lawsuit, 75 percent of Black officials at independent federal agencies have been fired under Trump. That’s an impossibly large percentage to attribute to chance rather than deliberate policy.
Brown’s lawsuit makes a particularly sharp legal argument: if Trump was simply trying to install Republicans in independent agencies, why were two other Democrats on the NTSB board allowed to keep their jobs while Brown — the only Black member — was fired?
“Mr. Brown’s removal from the NTSB cannot be explained by the fact that Mr. Brown is a Democrat and President Trump might have wanted to exert Republican control over the Board,” the filing states. “At the time of Mr. Brown’s removal from the NTSB, there were two other Democrats serving on the Board.”
The pattern extends far beyond the NTSB. The lawsuit documents Black officials being dismissed at the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Federal Reserve, and the Library of Congress. In virtually every case, Brown’s lawyers note, Trump either replaced the fired Black official with a white person or simply left the position unfilled.
“President Trump has removed Black Senate-confirmed appointees; he has either nominated a non-Black individual for their replacement or has not formally replaced them at all,” the lawsuit states. “This trend fits with President Trump’s consistent messaging criticizing diversity and inclusion and his clear and demonstrable emphasis on hiring white people.”
This is the same administration that gutted DEI programs across the federal government on day one. The same administration whose chief of staff, Ricky Buria, told a senior Army official that Trump wouldn’t want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events. The same administration that has systematically dismantled every program, office, and initiative designed to ensure that the federal government — which belongs to all Americans — actually reflects all Americans.
They called it fighting DEI. The lawsuit calls it what it is: racial discrimination in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
And, in case you were wondering, Brown’s replacement at the NTSB is John DeLeeuw. He is, as to be expected under Trump’s discriminatory administration, white.
-Occupy Democrats