The Supreme Court on Tuesday scrapped one of two lower court rulings preventing the Trump administration from firing approximately 16,000 probationary federal workers.

In an emergency order, the high court stayed a California federal jurist’s command to rehire the workers across six government departments — Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs — while concluding that nonprofit groups who challenged the firings lacked standing, giving the White House a temporary win while litigation plays out in the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Workers at those six agencies will remain on paid administrative leave for now.

The Supreme Court has not yet weighed in on another, similar injunction from a federal judge in Maryland, which remains in effect in 19 states plus the District of Columbia. 

“The [California] District Court’s injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine non-profit-organization plaintiffs in this case. But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing,” the unsigned order read. 

“This order does not address the claims of the other plaintiffs, which did not form the basis of the District Court’s preliminary injunction.”

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated they would have kept the lower court order in place. Sotomayor did not provide a rationale, but Jackson argued the administration lacked “demonstrated urgency” for the Supreme Court’s relief. 

US District Judge William Alsup, a Bill Clinton appointee, had ruled last month that the firings were a “sham” that had been improperly ordered by the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director. 

“It is sad, a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup wrote at the time.

Individual workers who had been fired were not involved in the suit, which was brought by a coalition of nonprofit groups and public sector unions.

“There is no doubt that thousands of public service employees were unlawfully fired in an effort to cripple federal agencies and their crucial programs that serve millions of Americans every day,” plaintiffs in the case said in a statement Tuesday.

“Today’s order by the U.S. Supreme Court is deeply disappointing but is only a momentary pause in our efforts to enforce the trial court’s orders and hold the federal government accountable.”

In the Maryland case, Baltimore US District Judge James Bredar, a Barack Obama appointee, concluded that the government failed to comply with rules demanding advance notice be given to states that would be impacted by the large-scale downsizing of the federal workforce. 

At least 24,000 probationary employees have been terminated in total since Trump took office Jan. 20, the lawsuits claim, though the government has not confirmed that number.