Former EPA staff sue over First Amendment firings

A Wisconsin man is one of seven former Environmental Protection Agency staffers suing federal regulators for their firings, alleging the agency violated their First Amendment rights.

The seven were among hundreds of current and former EPA staff who signed a letter in June 2025 opposing the Trump administration’s policies. The letter states those policies “undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment” amid the rollback of dozens of environmental regulations.

Former EPA staff members filed two lawsuits last week that allege the agency ignored internal legal advice and illegally dismissed employees in retaliation for signing the letter. They’re represented by attorneys with Washington, D.C.-based law firm James & Hoffman and nonprofit legal group Democracy Forward.

Superior resident Alexander Cole is one of two former biologists who signed the letter and were fired from the EPA’s Great Lakes Toxicology and Ecology Division Lab in Duluth.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, and … the First Amendment is just so foundational to maintaining democracy,” Cole said. “Firing us sets a very dangerous precedent, so seeing that reversed would be incredibly important.”

An EPA spokesperson declined to comment due to pending litigation.

The lawsuit states Cole and Stephanie Eytcheson, who were probationary employees, signed the letter with their personal cellphones outside of work hours. Attorneys want their jobs reinstated with back pay.

“Probationary federal government employees, like all people in America, have the constitutional right to participate in public discussion and debate in their personal capacities, even when their speech is critical of the government, and the government has no right to retaliate against these civil servants because of a protected opinion they expressed while off the clock,” said Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman in a news release.

On July 3, 2025, the EPA placed Cole, Eytcheson and more than 140 employees on administrative leave as it opened an investigation into the letter. Two days earlier, EPA records show that Justina Fugh, the director of the EPA’s Ethics Office, found no ethics concerns or violations of the Hatch Act, which bars employees from engaging in political activity on the job. Fugh wrote that employees were “simply exercising their First Amendment rights.”

One day before employees were placed on leave, Nathanael Nichols, EPA’s assistant general counsel, made similar findings and said, “the agency should not take personnel actions against employees who signed the letter.”

On Aug. 28, he reiterated that the agency shouldn’t remove employees because they could argue that their termination “constituted illegal retaliation for their protected First Amendment speech.” One day later, the EPA terminated Cole and Eytcheson.

Attorneys for former EPA staff argue probationary employees were targeted because they had no right to appeal their firings to the Merit Systems Protection Board. They said most employees who had stronger protections received only a two-week suspension or a letter of reprimand.

Last year, the EPA said in a statement that the letter signed by employees contained “inaccurate information designed to mislead the public about agency business.” But the agency didn’t expand on what details were wrong.

Nearly two dozen U.S. Senate Democrats, including Democratic Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, wrote a letter last week that called on EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to reinstate fired employees.

The EPA’s investigation found Cole and Eytcheson didn’t use work resources to sign the letter and that their signing of the letter didn’t interfere with their jobs, according to the lawsuit.

In December, the two filed complaints with the EPA’s Office of Special Counsel about their firings, and an investigation is still ongoing.

About six months before her termination, Eytcheson’s acting branch chief had praised her performance, saying the agency was “extremely lucky” to have Eytcheson.

In April last year, Cole’s review stated he was an “extremely skilled” and “valuable” employee, and he received a performance award for his work. He worked at the lab on the EPA’s ECOTOX Knowledgebase, a database that’s used to complete risk assessments for thousands of chemicals of concern.

“I felt like my work was meaningful, and (I) would like to really continue to do what I was doing before,” Cole said, “which was just upholding the EPA mission statement — protecting human health and the environment.”