Florida – From California to New York, President Donald Trump and his administration face growing pressure on many issues including gas and energy prices, inflation and the Iran war.
And things are only getting worse for them.
A new lawsuit from a former National Transportation Safety Board member is opening a different front in the ongoing legal fight over President Donald Trump’s removal of officials from independent federal agencies.
Instead of focusing only on presidential power, the case argues that race discrimination may have shaped who was pushed out.
Bloomberg News reported that Alvin Brown of Florida, a Black Democrat who had been nominated to the NTSB by former President Joe Biden, says his firing in May 2025 cannot be explained simply as a political move.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Brown contends that the pattern of removals under Trump points to something broader and more troubling.
His lawyers argue that Black officials at independent agencies were dismissed at a sharply disproportionate rate, making his case not just about one board seat, but about a wider claim of unequal treatment at the top levels of government.
According to the lawsuit, Brown’s termination came despite the continued presence of other Democrats on the same board.
That detail sits at the heart of his argument.
If the goal had been only to shift ideological control, his attorneys say, Brown would not have stood out in the way the administration treated him.
As the complaint puts it, “Mr. Brown’s removal from the NTSB cannot be explained by the fact that Mr. Brown is a Democrat and President Trump might have wanted to exert Republican control over the Board. At the time of Mr. Brown’s removal from the NTSB, there were two other Democrats serving on the Board.”
That claim gives Brown’s lawsuit a distinct constitutional angle.
His legal team is bringing the case under the Fifth Amendment, arguing that race discrimination helped shape the administration’s personnel decisions. Until now, many of the major court fights over Trump’s removal of leaders at independent agencies have centered on whether a president has the constitutional authority to fire Senate-confirmed officials whose agencies were designed to operate with a degree of independence.
Brown’s case adds another layer, asking whether the decision made in carrying out those removals were themselves discriminatory.
Brown’s attorneys say the numbers tell part of the story.
They claim that 75% of Black officials at independent agencies were fired under Trump. In their telling, the pattern stretches beyond the NTSB and includes removals of non-White leaders at the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Library of Congress, and other institutions. Brown was later replaced by a White man, a point the lawsuit highlights as part of what it describes as a clear trend.
The complaint also ties those staffing decisions to Trump’s repeated public attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Brown’s lawyers argue that those statements were not just campaign rhetoric or policy preferences, but part of a broader message that may help explain the administration’s choices.
“President Trump has removed Black Senate-confirmed appointees; he has either nominated a non-Black individual for their replacement or has not formally replaced them at all,” Brown’s lawyers wrote.
“This trend fits with President Trump’s consistent messaging criticizing diversity and inclusion and his clear and demonstrable emphasis.”
The case arrives at a moment when the courts are already examining the boundaries of executive authority. The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing related issues in a separate dispute involving the termination of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter. That case could shape how much power a president has over independent agencies. Brown’s lawsuit, however, asks the courts to look not only at power, but also at motive.
Democracy Forward Foundation is representing Brown in the case, which is listed as Brown v. DeLeeuw, D.D.C., No. 1:26-cv-01249, with the petition filed on April 14, 2026. An NTSB representative was not immediately available for comment.
What began as a battle over the reach of the presidency is now evolving into a deeper question about fairness, representation, and whether political reshuffling crossed into unlawful discrimination.
Brown’s suit suggests that behind the rapid turnover at independent agencies lies not just a struggle for control, but a fight over who was singled out to lose it.
