Two Black men who were fired by President Donald Trump from the National Transportation Safety Board and U.S. Surface Transportation Board accused the administration on Thursday of discriminating against them as part of a pattern of dismissing Black leaders across the government.
Robert Primus on the STB and Alvin Brown on the NTSB were the only Black board members overseeing their officially independent agencies when they were fired this year, in August and in May. Both had already filed lawsuits challenging their dismissals, saying the White House didn’t have good cause, as the law requires. Democracy Forward filed the new discrimination claims on behalf both men.
“When you look at who has been removed without cause, and who has been left in place, the pattern is impossible to ignore: Black commissioners across the federal government have been summarily fired,” said Brown, who was Vice Chairman of the NTSB. “My abrupt removal was unlawful, and it was discriminatory.
The White House said Trump was well within his legal rights to fire Primus and Brown and that performance, not bias, drove those decisions. The administration has yet to file a formal response to Primus’ lawsuit, but it asked a judge to dismiss Brown’s lawsuit, arguing that the statutory protection saying board members can only be fired for cause is unconstitutional and that the president should be able to pick his team at every executive agency.
“The only factor guiding the Trump administration’s personnel decisions is competence — lawful removals at the NTSB and STB are no different,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said.
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When Brown was fired, experts said they couldn’t remember anyone ever being fired from the NTSB, which is tasked with investigating disasters across all modes of transportation to determine what caused them and make recommendations to prevent similar tragedies from ever happening again. The NTSB is currently investigating nearly 1,250 cases including the collision of a passenger jet and Army helicopter over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people in January.
Primus was pushed off the STB shortly after Union Pacific proposed its $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern railroad, a massive deal the five-member board will consider approving over the next year or two. He was the only member of the STB to oppose Canadian Pacific’s acquisition of Kansas City Southern railroad in 2023 because he was concerned about the impact on competition. Trump has said he thinks the Union Pacific deal sounds good.
By law, no more than three of the five members of each board can be from one party. Primus and Brown are Democrats. Primus was nominated for his position by Trump during his first term, named board chairman by President Joe Biden and led the board until Trump began his second term and elevated Board member Patrick Fuchs to chairman. Primus’ lawyers pointed out that the other Democratic member of the STB was allowed to continue serving.
On the NTSB, another of the Democratic members, who is white, has continued serving beyond the expiration of his term the end of 2023, as is customary to do until a replacement is confirmed. But Brown was the one dismissed, even though he was scheduled to serve through the end of 2026. Trump nominated a white man to replace him.
The lawsuits argue that these firings reflect Trump’s broadening antipathy to seeing people of color in government positions: “This trend fits with President Trump’s consistent messaging criticizing diversity and inclusion and his clear and demonstrable emphasis on hiring white people.”
Trump has fired a string of board members at various agencies that are supposed to be independent including the Federal Reserve, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Senate Commerce Committee will consider advancing the nominations of both men’s replacements to a vote next week.