Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, REMEDIES, DAMAGES—D.D.C.: Corporation for Public Broadcasting loses bid for preliminary relief in suit over Trump firings, (Jun 11, 2025)

By Marjorie Johnson, J.D.

The court stated that the CPB’s subsequent changes to its bylaws “in all likelihood” protected the remaining two members from unilateral removal by the Trump administration.

In a lawsuit filed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and others following the Trump administration’s purported firing of three of its five individual Board members, CPB lost its bid for a preliminary injunction barring the President from removing the remaining Board members and prohibiting the administration from taking any action to interfere with the entity’s internal governance and operations. Noting that the case presented important questions regarding the status of CPB and its relationship with the federal government that would be left for another day, the court found that the plaintiffs failed to carry their burden of demonstrating that they were likely to prevail on the merits of their claim for injunctive relief or that they were likely to suffer irreparable harm, finding amongst other things that CPB could still function even if one or both of the remaining members were removed (Corporation for Public Broadcasting v. Trump, No. 25-1305 (RDM) (D.D.C. Jun. 8, 2025)).

Public Broadcasting Act. In the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 (PBA), Congress authorized the establishment of the CPB, and its initial Board of Directors subsequently organized the nonprofit under the D.C. Nonprofit Corporation Act. The PBA provides that the President appoints the Board members with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Act also provides that the CPB is not “an agency or establishment of the United States Government,” and that its members are not “officers or employees of the United States.” Except as provided in certain antidiscrimination laws, the Act forbids any federal agency or employee from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control” over the CPB and its programming.

Email purports to fire three members. When the CBP was originally established, the PBA provided that the Board would consist of 15 members. Congress subsequently reduced that number to nine, and for the past few years, the Board has operated with only five members. In an April 28 email, the Trump administration ostensibly dismissed three of the current five Board members without cause, leaving the Board with only two active members.

Lawsuit. The CPB and the Board members brought the instant action challenging the April 28 email. In particular, the CPB argued that it was a “private corporation” which Congress carefully insulated from governmental interference, and over which the President and his administration lacked authority to exercise any “direction, supervision, or control,” including by attempting to fire its members. Thus, the CPB sought a declaration that the April 28 email had no legal effect.

Preliminary relief. At issue was the CPB’s motion for a preliminary injunction that would bar the Trump administration from taking any action to give effect to the purported termination of the three Board members or otherwise to interfere with or to attempt to control the CPB, pending final resolution of the case. The court ultimately found that while the case presented important questions regarding the status of the CPB and its relationship with the federal government, at this point the preliminary relief the plaintiffs sought was not warranted.

Likelihood of success. Putting aside important threshold issues, such as whether the court had the power to issue an injunction running against the President under the particular circumstances, the court first found the CPB failed to demonstrate the likelihood of success on the merits. In particular, assuming that D.C. corporate law was controlling, the President (as the appointing person) was authorized to remove the three members at the time he acted. D.C. corporate law also authorized the CPB to provide otherwise in its articles of incorporation or bylaws, but it failed to do so until after the April 28 email purporting to remove the three members.

PBA and D.C. corporate law not inconsistent. At this preliminary stage, the court rejected the CPB’s contention that to the extent D.C. corporate law permitted the President unilaterally to remove the three members, it was inconsistent with the PBA. Importantly, applying D.C. corporate law was not irreconcilable with the congressional intent to insulate the CPB from governmental or political influence since Congress had indirectly provided the nonprofit organization with the authority to protect its own independence by allowing it to modify its bylaws—as it has now done—to protect its Board members from at-will removal by the appointing authority (the President). “The fact that the Board only did so recently does not mean that the PBA and the D.C. Nonprofit Corporation Act are inconsistent; it simply means that, until recently, the Corporation has not vigorously protected its own independence,” stated the court.

In addition, the President was not free to remove members and then unilaterally appoint their replacements, thereby using his power to remove as a means for altering Board policy, since he could only appoint new members with the advice and consent of the Senate. Moreover, D.C. corporate law and the CPB's bylaws allowed the CPB to protect its independence and continue to operate even if the President removed multiple members by allowing it to vest some of the duties and authorities of Board members in a “designated body.”

Here, the CPB’s bylaws provided that in the absence of the statutory minimum number of presidentially-appointed members, a three-member designated body would exercise the rights and responsibilities of the Board in the meantime. This designated body would consist of the remaining, presidentially-appointed members and former members in the order in which they most recently served. “This provision, accordingly, protects CPB from the potentially crippling effect of the loss of most, but not all, directors, and prevents governmental interference in its operations,” explained the court.

Irreparable harm. The CPB also failed to establish a likelihood of irreparable harm. As an initial matter, the court noted that the injunctive relief sought—prohibiting the President from removing any Board member and prohibiting the Trump administration from taking any action to interfere with the CPB's internal governance and operations—was unrelated to the harms that the putatively removed members assert. Moreover, there was no indication that the CPB's premises were at risk of “invasion” or that any department or agency had threatened to take over or otherwise control the CPB. Rather, the plaintiffs pointed only to an email from a DOGE staffer requesting the opportunity to meet to discuss the CPB and “getting a DOGE team assigned to” it, which the court found was insufficient to establish a risk of irreparable harm.

To the extent the President might have had the authority unilaterally to remove its members before this suit was brought, the CPB Board had since taken a step that, in all likelihood, would prevent any such action by amending its bylaws to require Board concurrence—as permitted under the D.C. Nonprofit Corporation Act. And even if the President were to effectively do so anyway, the CPB still had a meaningful remedy which would permit it to continue to operate since D.C. corporate law allowed it to authorize a “designated body” to perform some, although not all, of the functions of the Board. Thus, if one or both of the remaining members were removed, the CPB could still function. Finally, the existing two-member Board could satisfy the quorum requirement since the D.C. corporate law provided that a nonprofit corporation's articles of incorporation or bylaws may authorize a quorum of a third of the number of directors “in office” or two directors, whichever is greater.

The case is No. 25-1305 (RDM).

Judge: Moss, R.

Attorneys: Jeffrey Scott Robbins (Saul Ewing) for Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Jeremy Samuel Bloch Newman, U.S. Department of Justice, for Donald J. Trump.

Companies: Corporation for Public Broadcasting

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