A judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit against the federal government filed by a park ranger who was fired last year after helping to hang a large transgender pride flag from a rock formation in Yosemite National Park in California.
The ranger, Shannon Joslin, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they and them as pronouns, claimed in the lawsuit that their termination in August 2025 had been “vindictive” and “retaliatory” and meant to “communicate disapproval of a particular point of view.”
The case arose from Dr. Joslin’s decision to help hang the trans pride flag — with pink, blue and white stripes — at El Capitan, Yosemite’s best-known cliff, during their time off.
Dr. Joslin, who has a Ph.D. in genetics, asked to be reinstated to their position as a quantitative wildlife biologist with the National Park Service and to be spared from any criminal investigation or prosecution.
But on Friday, the judge, Jennifer L. Thurston of the Eastern District of California, ruled that she did not have the authority to reinstate Dr. Joslin to their position.
“Under the laws that Congress has passed, and under the legal precedent that a federal trial court must follow, this court does not have authority to decide whether Joslin was fired for unconstitutional or illegal reasons, nor to block a hypothetical criminal case against them,” Judge Thurston wrote on Friday, granting the government’s motion to dismiss the case, The Hill reported.
The judge’s ruling did not directly address Dr. Joslin’s claim that their free speech rights had been violated.
On May 21, 2025, a day after Dr. Joslin helped to hang the flag in Yosemite, the park’s acting superintendent signed a new rule outlawing the display of large flags throughout most of the park.
The move coincided with a push by the federal government to limit political demonstrations on public lands, especially those critical of the policies of the Trump administration.
In a statement on Saturday, one of Dr. Joslin’s lawyers, Clayton L. Bailey of the Civil Service Law Center, lamented that the judge had not addressed the merits of his client’s First Amendment claims and said that Dr. Joslin’s legal team was considering “all possible next steps, including appeal.”
Judge Thurston, who was nominated to the bench under the Biden administration, said in her ruling that Dr. Joslin’s claims should be addressed instead by the Office of Special Counsel, which conducts ethics investigations of government employees.
Mr. Bailey said on Saturday that the legal team would continue to pursue that route. He was not pleased to have to do so, however.
“We believe constitutional rights should be protected by courts, and not left to the whims of political appointees in the executive branch,” he said. “Right now, it is unclear whether Dr. Joslin will ever have their day in court.”
In an interview on Saturday, Dr. Joslin, 36, said they were very surprised and disappointed by the ruling, but vowed to keep fighting.
“To me this ruling isn’t a ‘win’ for the federal government,” they added in a text message. “This just slows down the process of allowing justice to be served for the American people and slows down allowing National Park Service employees to be effective stewards of public lands.”
The Department of the Interior, one of the defendants, said in a statement on Saturday that it takes “the protection of the park’s resources and the experience of our visitors very seriously and will not tolerate violations of laws and regulations that impact those resources and experiences.”
A representative for the White House directed questions to the Department of the Interior.
Dr. Joslin said that their firing had created a ripple effect throughout the Park Service, particularly among employees at Yosemite.
“Everyone is looking over their shoulder,” they said, and being careful not to “create a ruckus.”
Dr. Joslin, who lives in a small town near Yosemite, said they missed working for the Park Service.
Dr. Joslin wanted to find a way to get back to a job at Yosemite, they said, though they had begun to look for jobs outside the Park Service in recent months, while also trying to support the L.G.B.T.Q. community and federal workers who had lost their jobs under the Trump administration.
“I understand the gravity of being let go for an identity that this administration has turned into an ideology,” Dr. Joslin said.
