DOJ Leader Calls for Civil Rights Paradigm Shift After Exodus
Harmeet Dhillon says civil rights division moving in opposite direction
Hundreds of career lawyers resigned, reassigned
Dhillon, a San Francisco lawyer who previously represented Trump in his personal capacity, is known for arguing conservative positions in cases involving religious liberty, treatment for transgender minors, and censorship on college campuses
She has overseen a stark realignment of division priorities, moving to focus its resources toward conservative issues, including anti-Christian bias and gun rights. Established in 1957 during the civil rights movement, the division has historically enforced anti-discrimination laws in voting, education, housing, and other areas.
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Closing out the conservative legal associations all-day conference on executive branch review, Dhillon called for a paradigm shift at the unit and described a generational opportunity for a reformation within civil rights.
She outlined her priorities for the division as fighting against racial quotas, blocking transgender women from participating in womens sports teams, and protecting Jewish students on college campuses, among other missions, which align with new mission statements that were recently sent to the divisions sections.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/doj-leader-calls-for-civil-rights-paradigm-shift-after-exodus
Trump ally pushes DoJ unit to shift civil rights focus, new messages show
The justice departments civil rights division is shifting its focus away from its longstanding work protecting the rights of marginalized groups and will instead pivot towards Donald Trumps priorities including hunting for noncitizen voters and protecting white people from discrimination, according to new internal mission statements seen by the Guardian.
The new priorities were sent to several sections of the civil rights division this week by Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump ally who was confirmed a little more than two weeks ago to lead the division. Several of them give only glancing mention to the statutes and kinds of discrimination that have long been the focus of the division, which dates back to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Several of the mission statements point to Trumps executive orders as priorities for the section.
The mission statement for the voting section, for example, barely mentions the Voting Rights Act and instead says
the section will focus on preventing voter fraud which is exceedingly rare and helping states find noncitizens on their voter rolls (noncitizen voting is also exceedingly rare). The guidance for the Housing and Civil Enforcement section does not make a single mention of the Fair Housing Act, the landmark 1968 civil rights law that has long been a central part of the departments work.
Its absolutely astonishing, said Sasha Samberg-Champion, a former appellate lawyer in the justice departments civil rights division. This reflects the complete abdication of the core responsibilities of each of these sections.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/18/justice-department-civil-rights-division-trump
Noncitizen voting will of course, be punished by banishment, if suspected (and I wouldn't be surprised if they try that on actual citizens with similar names to noncitizens - searches of voter rolls by "voter fraud" obsessives are typically mostly about mistaken identity).