WASHINGTON, D.C., August. 5, 2025—In May, we took legal action alongside Feds for Freedom, America First Legal, and Boyden Gray PLLC to restore merit-based hiring practices across the United States Government.  

On Friday, we won. A federal court struck down a 40‑year ban on civil service exams, effectively terminating a Carter-era rule against merit-based hiring. Americans will be given the same opportunity to serve our country based on merit alone — not racial quotas. 

“We are grateful to American Moment and Feds for Freedom for their willingness to step up and challenge this unconstitutional consent decreethat…[made] the federal government less effective and less capable of hiring based on merit,” said Nick Barry of America First Legal. This is a landmark win for competence, fairness, and the American people. 

About the case

In May, we announced that we moved to intervene in a case to overturn the 1981 Luevano consent decree—a Carter-era agreement that blocks merit-based hiring.

“For years, American Moment has identified, educated, and credentialed the next generation of underestimated young Americans. This case seeks to give those Americans the same opportunity to serve our country based on merit alone — not racial quotas,” our Chief Executive Officer Nick Solheim said in a statement.

In 1981, the federal government banned the use of standardized exams to enter civil service—replacing them with vague, unaccountable “alternative assessments.” The result? A federal workforce shaped by racial quotas instead of ability. America has paid the price ever since.

For decades, the Office of Personnel Management in the White House (OPM) couldn’t create a merit-based exam that satisfied Luevano’s race-conscious mandates—because merit can’t coexist with DEI.

However, under President Trump, OPM pushed to end the decree, calling it unconstitutional and illegal under Title VII.

“America is missing out on top talent because of an illegal, 44-year-old consent decree,” Nick Barry, senior counsel at AFL, told Fox News in a statement. “We must move back to merit-based evaluations. Race and other immutable traits have no place in that process.”

American taxpayers deserve the best and brightest in government—not hiring based on race, color, or immutable characteristics. It’s time to restore the rule of law, and return to a civil service that actually serves the public interest. 

Read the motion here.

American Moment

Founded in 2021, American Moment exists to identify, educate, and credential young Americans who will implement public policy that supports strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all.

American Moment trains policy staff and young minds through its four core programs: the Fellowship for American Statecraft, Foundations of American Statecraft, Frontiers of American Statecraft, and AMFridays. American Moment is also the publisher of monthly policy-specific Study Guides, and producer of its flagship podcast, Moment of Truth.

American Moment’s work has been featured by Politico Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Examiner, The Atlantic, Semafor, Axios, The Washington Post, The Daily Wire, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Tech Crunch, and many others.

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