Former VOA and USAGM employees challenge separation offers

Updated July 8, 2026

The former employees are challenging the legality of agreements they accepted in 2025 to leave the government as VOA and its parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, were being dismantled. The litigation stems from actions taken by new agency leadership in March 2025 that dramatically disrupted operations and staffing at both VOA and USAGM.

As the agency cut news services and began planning a widespread workforce reduction, many employees agreed to take separation offers under the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment (VSIP) programs.

Agency pressure

“Careers were upended in a matter of days as employees faced pressure to make deeply consequential, irreversible decisions with the clock ticking,” said Sonya Laurence Green, a lead appellant and former senior editor at VOA. “We believe employees deserve a fair opportunity to revisit those decisions and seek justice.”

Fifty-nine former employees signed on to the case. Through the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), they are seeking remedies that could include reinstatement with back pay. The appellants argue that the separation offers are legally “voidable” because they were processed during a period when a federal court found that Kari Lake lacked legal authority to act on behalf of USAGM.

“We have always maintained that these separation offers were not truly voluntary, but were accepted under duress,” said Amy Katz, former acting chief of VOA’s Kurdish Service and an appellant. “We believe this legal process will bring greater transparency to how these decisions were made as employees faced the prospect of mass layoffs.”

Procedural history

The case began on April 6, 2026, when Green, Katz, Kane Farabaugh and Ajdin Muratovic filed a proposed class action with the MSPB. In May 2026, Administrative Judge Paul DiTomasso declined to certify the case as a class action, but ruled that affected employees could pursue individual appeals and later seek consolidation.

By the court’s June 10, 2026, deadline, 59 former employees had filed individual appeals. Two days later, the MSPB consolidated those appeals into a single proceeding, formally designated as “USAGM Involuntary Separation Group 1 Consolidation v. U.S. Agency for Global Media.” Before the appeals were consolidated, the case was referred to as “Green v. USAGM.”

Broader impact

The appellants say the case also has broader significance for VOA’s public service mission. “This case is not only about the impact on employees, but also about preserving the value of VOA’s work and the experienced professionals who carried out that mission,” said Farabaugh, an award-winning former VOA correspondent.