By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration is reversing course on firing nearly every employee at a 1960s-era agency within the U.S. Department of Justice known as "America's peacemaker" that is tasked with quelling racial and ethnic tensions in U.S. communities.
The Justice Department, in a filing on Tuesday in federal court in Boston, disclosed that it had on Friday rescinded layoff notices it issued in September to 13 of the Community Relations Service's employees
as part of a "reduction in force".
Those job cuts would have eliminated almost all of its employees, a fact civil rights groups cited in a lawsuit arguing the firings were part of an unlawful effort by Trump's administration to dismantle the Community Relations Service.
In Tuesday's filing, the Justice Department said it decided to reinstate the employees "as a matter of administrative discretion." But it did not say if they would be resuming work on Community Relations Service functions, a fact the plaintiffs noted in a separate filing.
The plaintiffs, who include the Ethical Society of Police and two local branches of the NAACP, asked a judge to hold a hearing to assess the impact on the case and if the reinstated employees would return to work on CRS duties.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The agency was established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and since then has deployed teams to mediate school desegregation conflicts and address unrest in various high-profile cases, including after the 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer.
Under Trump, the agency has declined all new requests for services and assistance, according to the lawsuit. Trump's administration has proposed abolishing the agency, and his budget proposal for the current fiscal year contained no money for it.
But a bipartisan appropriations package moving through Congress would instead give $20 million to the Community Relations Service.
In October, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani declined to issue a temporary restraining order blocking the 13 employees' termination, but she said the plaintiffs made a strong showing they would likely ultimately prevail.
Talwani, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, has since October been weighing whether to issue an injunction requiring them to be reinstated and preventing the agency's dismantling.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Mark Heinrich)
