A dozen former FBI special agents have filed a lawsuit against FBI Director Kash Patel over the bureau’s decision to terminate their employment after the agents knelt during a George Floyd protest in 2020.

The complaint, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, concerns an incident in which the former special agents said they took a knee as a “de-escalation response” to a mob surrounding them during a June 4, 2020, protest in response to the death of Floyd. The plaintiffs said they were fired after Patel triggered an internal review of the incident, which the Biden administration had already reviewed and dismissed.