Jessica Calderon, the Denver employee who won a temporary restraining order preventing the City and County of Denver from terminating her amid the 2025 citywide layoffs, appeared in federal court today for a preliminary injunction hearing in her lawsuit against the city and the Office of Mayor Mike Johnston.
Calderon, who served as director of operations and innovation in the Mayor’s Office of Social Equity & Innovation, alleges she and other city employees were “deliberately targeted” as the city shed workers in August 2025 to remedy its looming financial woes.
After nearly six hours of testimony on Tuesday from Calderon and her former bosses Ben Sanders, the city’s chief equity officer, and Brian Firooz, the deputy director of the Mayor’s Office of Social Equity & Innovation, both of whom are also named as defendants, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang took the matter “under advisement,” adding that the court would issue a written order “as soon as possible.”…