Judge Orders Voice Of America Employees Returned To Work

Voice of America may soon be up and running again.

A federal judge ordered that more than 1,000 employees working for government-run broadcasting entities, including VOA, be returned to work, reversing a key part of Trump administration efforts to dismantle the entities. U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth also set aside the suspension of broadcast operations.

The judge set a March 23 deadline for the employees to return.

Read the Voice of America ruling.

In March, 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA and other U.S. government broadcasting entities, to the minimum level required by statute.

The president has long targeted Voice of America, and in second term has sought to sideline its operations. He tapped Kari Lake, a longtime loyalist, to serve as senior adviser and carry out his executive order to wind down the U.S. Agency for Global Media to all but the bare minimum. By law, VOA is to remain independent of political influence, out of fears that it otherwise would become a president’s propaganda arm.

In his ruling, Lamberth wrote that Lake was “unlawfully withholding agency action,” ruling that the law required that the broadcast entities still function and reach certain areas of the world.

Lamberth wrote that the plaintiffs in the case — the director of Voice of America and a group of employees — offer undisputed evidence” that VOA is “unable to operate its Iran at current staffing levels, despite a statutory mandate to do so.”

In summarizing the plaintiffs’ argument, the judge noted that “while these statutes undoubtedly call for USAGM leadership’s judgment regarding how to effectuate Congress’s broadcasting directives, they have no discretion regarding whether to do so.”

Earlier this month, Lamberth ruled that Lake had been running the U.S. Agency for Global Media without legal authority, voiding a number of her actions to downsize the agency.

In a joint statement, three plaintiffs in the case, Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper, said, “This is a monumental decision, and we are deeply grateful. We are eager to begin repairing the damage Kari Lake has inflicted on our agency and our colleagues, to return to our congressional mandate, and to rebuild the trust of the global audience we have been unable to serve for the past year.”

The U.S. Agency for Global Media also has funded entities like Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.