NRLB ruled that citing scientific studies is "so harmful as to be unprotected", which is a bad joke. If citing studies is bad enough to be fired, what about the academics who wrote them? That agency has got no credibility anymore as a consequence.
So if the agency has no credibility, then there's no sense in appealing to the agency's mistaken opinion in the Damore case that he should have lost his protection, and so these employees should not lose it either, right?