This shouldn't have come as a shock. The Trump administration's agenda for rolling back civil rights was laid out in “Project 2025,” a 900-page road map written by conservative think tanks and former administration officials. After his inauguration, the president began issuing executive orders, ending programs, halting investigations, and appointing anti-civil rights supporters to key positions in his government. Some Democratic leaders have spoken out and condemned budget cuts and layoffs. But in the months that followed, the administration largely got away with it, casting its actions as reining in cumbersome DEI rules or cutting corporate bureaucracy. It took the efforts of the very workers most under attack to sound the alarm about what was really happening. Namely, this country's progress in civil rights and equality under the law is being reversed, ended before our eyes with clear intent, and it's happening quickly.
Recently, four attorneys and staff from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Office of General Counsel and Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity) made public an emergency complaint they filed through U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren's office and released to the press. I spoke with two of these brave whistleblowers about why their actions were necessary. Paul Osadebe is a federal government attorney, union director of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Local 476 in Washington, D.C., and a member of the Federal Unionist Network. Palmer Heenan is also a federal government attorney and a member of AFGE and FUN.
The two were fired by HUD shortly after we spoke in what was called a “stunning act of unlawful retaliation.”
Laura Flanders: Outline some key points in your whistleblower complaint.
Paul Osadebe: Civil rights enforcement at HUD and throughout the federal government is being dismantled. If you are renting or trying to buy a home, if you are a disabled veteran or survivor, or someone who is discriminated against because of your race or having children, you should get help. The problem is that we are not allowed to help you. When you come to us with a complaint, it may not even be investigated because of staff cuts or because political appointees say, “We don't want to handle cases like this anymore. It's DEI now. We're just not going to do it.”
LF: Who makes these decisions?
Palmer Heenan: Newly appointed political leaders at HUD. Some of them are lawyers and some are not lawyers. But the fact is that our office represents the most experienced group of fair housing advocates in virtually the entire country. This is largely due to the fact that our office was created during the Reagan administration to do this work. The government has asked HUD to investigate the cases, and our investigative arm is the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. They created our prosecutor's office as, in essence, a prosecutor's office. We are the ones who bring fair housing cases. We are the ones who recruit the best advocates for fair housing, both inside and outside the administration. There are many people in our office who have served in Republican and Democratic administrations, and that's because housing is not a political issue, or at least it shouldn't be. But because of the decisions being made now, this has become a political issue, and the subsequent consequences will be disastrous.
LF: I hear both your passion for this work and your concern for those who will not receive services or even help. You and the guys from FUN, the Federal Unionist Network, stand up and I want to hear more about what makes this possible.
BY: What will really get us through this is solidarity, recognizing the potential power we have as federal employees in the workplace and connecting with each other, learning the skills to actually do it, even in an atmosphere of extreme fear. This is a management method. They want to create fear, which leads to silence, which allows everything to be destroyed without anyone standing up and saying, “This is illegal, this is wrong, and this is hurting people.” In fact, it should be done by federal employees, those who are in the building. That's what FUN is. We make sure that people know that they are not alone, that there are people who are willing to fight and know how to do it, and that our job is not to just sit here and accept it or be apolitical. When political appointees don't let you do your job, you must defend your agency and stand together with your colleagues who are all under attack and defend yourself, your agency and the people we serve.
LF: And I must say that it is no coincidence that you are both also members of the union. FUN is not a union, but you are members of AFGE.
PH: This is absolutely true. Before all of this, we were able to work collectively and expand our natural sense of community with our union members to come together and say, “Whatever risk there is to us is outweighed by the risk to the people we serve. Part of our duty and part of our oath as federal employees is to take action. If that means going out in public and losing our livelihood, that's what we have to do.”
LF: Palmer, would you call yourself a far left radical?
PH: Absolutely not. I wouldn't call myself a far-left radical. I would describe myself as someone who has dedicated my legal career to trying to help people, regardless of their political views, when they have been discriminated against based on any of the classes protected by the Fair Housing Act. Your religion, your race, your skin color, your gender, your national origin, due to disability status. There are so many protected categories. Every American is protected by the Fair Housing Act. In my work, politics doesn't matter. What matters is that someone comes to me, I investigate their case, and if there are reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination has occurred, I prosecute the person who harmed them. Because in this country we don't allow it, or at least we don't.
LF: Donald Trump and his family were sued in the 1970s, before your office was created, for discriminating against blacks and Hispanics in their housing projects. Is it crazy to think that this guy is just holding a grudge?
BY: They have been quite consistent from the first administration until now, and are still not very happy with housing control. They seem to care much more about the opinions of developers, landlords, people who want to discriminate, than they do the ordinary Americans who face discrimination every day, the thousands of people who file complaints, and, what's more, those who never complain. I don't know why they do what they do. This doesn't seem to help people.
LF: What do you hope to gain from the inspector general's investigation?
PH: I hope this brings clarity to the inner workings of HUD and how these cuts, these reassignments, these dismantles have impacted our work. The Inspector General has already discovered that our office is understaffed, meaning case turnaround times are through the roof. These cuts to both our office and HUD's investigative arm, the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, will further lengthen wait times, setting aside hundreds of cases that have already been withdrawn, suspended, or cases where benefits have been canceled or reduced, or whatever. We need transparency in the investigation so the American people can see the full scope of what was done at HUD. Only then can we really start to fix this.
LF: Paul, you were one of the founders of FUN. How has the organization grown? Can you say there is a growing wave of previously unorganized people taking action?
BY: I was one of the original members, and I'm not sure I quite count myself among the founders, but it existed before this administration. We learned that we must be prepared for an administration that does not value federal workers and the protections we provide, or that it becomes anti-labor and anti-union. Now that moment has arrived, and that's why FUN has made such a splash over the past few months. We are trying to organize people who are currently being targeted, who are still working, people who have already been laid off or who have been forced out of work through the Deferred Severance Program. For anyone who values federal work and protecting the American people, we are trying to get those people more organized, more prepared, and more willing to use all the tools at their disposal and recognize their power. That's what FUN is. I believe we will see more people doing what we just did because employees are the ones who know best how to protect their agency and serve the public. As long as we understand that this is our position and our oath requires us to do so, I think we will see a lot more action and fight from federal employees and our allies.
