Harmeet Dhillon, who became head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division last April, has initiated sweeping changes to the unit’s operations and workforce. According to current and former division officials, Dhillon has dismissed hundreds of longtime attorneys and replaced them with less experienced staff aligned with her ideological vision. Over the past 18 months, these staffing transitions have resulted in the departure of approximately 300 attorneys, with roughly 130 new hires bringing the number of recently hired attorneys to exceed those retained from previous administrations.
Dhillon has articulated a fundamentally different vision for the division’s mission compared to its historical focus. Rather than concentrating primarily on protecting rights of people of color, as she contends previous leadership had done, Dhillon argues the division should pursue more uniform civil rights enforcement across all demographic groups. She has characterized prior approaches as creating “benevolent racism” by providing remedies based on historical discrimination. Under her leadership, the division has withdrawn from numerous ongoing investigations and cases involving voting rights, racial discrimination, and civil matters against anti-abortion activists.
The division’s work has shifted toward new priority areas. Voting rights enforcement has focused on investigating alleged election fraud involving noncitizen voters, resulting in lawsuits against multiple states demanding voter information. Federal judges have dismissed more than two dozen of these lawsuits, including recent decisions in Georgia. In education policy, the division has filed accusations against several universities, alleging discrimination against white and Asian applicants in admissions decisions and pursuing cases involving alleged antisemitism on campuses. A federal judge dismissed the department’s Harvard antisemitism lawsuit in August, determining the allegations were “too isolated and episodic” to establish civil rights violations.
The staffing changes have created significant institutional challenges within the division. Observers note the departures have depleted the division of experienced attorneys and institutional knowledge necessary for complex civil rights work. Not all sections have been equally affected, with housing and disability rights units continuing traditional enforcement activities. Division officials say the organization is now understaffed and operating with reduced expertise. The hiring process has reportedly been modified to remove traditional protections against partisan political considerations that had been implemented approximately two decades prior.
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