![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Snowy-Mountain-Travel-Presentation-6-678x381.jpg\" "\\"Brown")
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The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia argues that Brown\u2019s May 2025 termination from the NTSB is one data point in a documented pattern of systematic elimination. According to attorneys from the Democracy Forward Foundation, roughly 75% of Black officials at independent federal agencies have been fired under Trump\u2019s second term, compared to approximately 27% of white officials in the same positions \u2014 nearly three times the rate. \nTrump also attempted to remove Federal Reserve Governor\u00a0Lisa Cook, but courts have so far allowed her to remain in her position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown and now a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board who was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-240788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Snowy-Mountain-Travel-Presentation-6.jpg\")
<\/a>Former Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown and now a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board who was nominated by President Biden, has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of removing him \u2014 in addition to dozens of other Black officials across the government \u2014 because of their race. The Trump administration has framed many of its agency firings as efforts to install Republican leadership and purge Biden-era appointees. Brown\u2019s lawsuit pushes back on that framing directly.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMr. Brown\u2019s 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,\u201d the complaint states. \u201cAt the time of Mr. Brown\u2019s removal from the NTSB, there were two other Democrats serving on the Board.\u201d Brown was the only Black board member \u2014 and the only one fired.
\nBrown was Vice Chairman of the NTSB and had been scheduled to serve through the end of 2026. Trump nominated a white man to replace him. When Brown was dismissed in May 2025, legal experts told the Associated Press they could not recall anyone ever being fired from the NTSB before as noted by Fortune Magazine. His role focused on contributing to accident investigations, safety recommendations and public hearings rather than directing the agency\u2019s overall operations. His service came after his term as mayor of Jacksonville and added federal transportation oversight experience to his r\u00e9sum\u00e9.
\nThe lawsuit is specific and names a string of agencies where Trump has removed Black officials from leadership. They include the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Federal Reserve, and the Library of Congress. In most cases, the complaint says, Black appointees were replaced with white nominees or left with no formal replacement at all.
\n\u201cPresident 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,\u201d the lawsuit states. \u201cThis trend fits with President Trump\u2019s consistent messaging criticizing diversity and inclusion and his clear and demonstrable emphasis on hiring white people.\u201d
\nBrown himself was direct about what the numbers show. \u201cWhen you look at who has been removed without cause, and who has been left in place, the pattern is impossible to ignore: Black commissioners across the federal government have been summarily fired,\u201d he said.
\nDemocracy Forward is also representing\u00a0Robert Primus, a Black former member of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board who was also fired. Primus was the only STB member to oppose Canadian Pacific\u2019s acquisition of Kansas City Southern Railroad in 2023 and was pushed out shortly after Union Pacific proposed an $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern \u2014 a deal the board will soon consider. Trump has publicly said the Union Pacific deal sounds good.
\nThe lawsuit by the former mayor invokes the Fifth Amendment\u2019s equal protection guarantee, adding a racial discrimination angle to what has until now<\/a> been primarily a debate about the president\u2019s constitutional authority to fire independent agency heads. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently weighing that question in a separate case involving Rebecca Slaughter, a former Federal Trade Commission member whose dismissal Trump also ordered.<\/p>\n