Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Thursday that Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon resigned after 18 months leading the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, whose priorities she redirected toward President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Blanche announced the decision in a post on X and praised Dhillon’s service, saying she had defended Americans’ civil liberties and enforced the law “without fear or favor.”
NPR reported that Dhillon told division staff in an email that she had informed Trump in early October of her plan to return to private practice after the midterm elections. She also said she was proud of the division’s work to make civil rights laws protect every American.
NPR reported that Dhillon pushed out about 300 career attorneys and brought in replacements the outlet described as inexperienced ideological allies. The changes altered the division’s staff as well as its enforcement priorities.
Under Dhillon, the division focused on carrying out Trump administration executive orders related to school policies, women’s sports, antisemitism and alleged anti-Christian bias, NPR reported. Separately, the outlet said, the division sought voter information from dozens of states in lawsuits filed ahead of the midterms, amid Trump’s claims of voter fraud. Election officials objected, and courts dismissed those suits, NPR reported. NPR reported allegations that several universities and law schools discriminated against white and Asian students, as well as the division’s lawsuits against UCLA and Harvard over alleged antisemitism.
NPR said Dhillon believed the division had spent too much of recent decades focusing on protecting people of color, a view that shaped her turn toward conservative priorities. NPR said the division was established roughly seven decades ago amid the civil rights movement, with ending racial segregation as its original purpose. The outlet said it later worked across housing, employment, education and policing to protect constitutional rights.
Stacey Young, a former division attorney who leads Justice Connection, a group of Justice Department alumni that supports department employees, criticized Dhillon’s treatment of career staff and enforcement goals. Young alleged that the division used federal authority to pressure universities, election workers and officials at state and local levels, and said many of the cases failed in court.
Blanche did not name a successor in his announcement, a point covered in EconoTimes’ earlier report on Dhillon’s resignation.
