A federal district judge on Thursday allowed the C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe, to fire intelligence officers who had worked on diversity issues, a decision that could clear the path for the termination of other employees at the spy agency.

More than 50 officers assigned to DEI posts at CIA and the Office of National Intelligence have been fired, cannot challenge the firings and cannot take another intelligence post.

The CIA late last week moved to fire more than a dozen officers for working on diversity issues, in what amounts to a deeply unusual round of mass firings at the agency, according to court filings and current and former officials familiar with the effort.