DOJ civil rights head resigns following midterm blowout

Harmeet Dhillon’s final act in office was to send 1,000 DOJ election monitors to polling sites in all 50 states for the first time in U.S. history.WASHINGTON (CN) — Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon resigned as the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division on Thursday in the first major Trump administration shakeup following the overwhelming midterm success by Democrats.Dhillon spearheaded the Justice Department’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion policies throughout the federal government and corporate America, regularly fielding potential targets for investigation from users on social media complaining of “anti-white bias.”Dhillon’s last major action in the role was to send approximately 1,000 DOJ election monitors to polling sites in all 50 states for the first time in the nation’s history, with a significant portion sent to jurisdictions that went to Kamala Harris in 2024 and with large Black and Latino populations.The Justice Department was able to avoid court intervention by ensuring none of the monitors were law enforcement officials with arresting power.The resignation comes as voters across the country rebuked President Donald Trump and the Republican Party in Tuesday’s midterm elections, granting Democrats substantial majorities in both the House and the Senate.Many Democrats have vowed to use their majorities to investigate and potentially impeach Trump’s most controversial political appointees — Arizona Senator Mark Kelly has repeatedly made the case to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, while Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Education Secretary Linda McMahon face similar resolutions.Dhillon did not face such calls for impeachment from lawmakers, but nonetheless faced significant criticism from the legal community over the gutting of career attorneys and employees at the Justice Department. The agency has lost over 5,500 employees through May 2026 and 40% of its appellate attorneys since February 2025.She also led lawsuits against numerous universities across the country, such as Harvard and UCLA, claiming they purportedly allowed an antisemitic environment tied to student-led protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.The Justice Department also filed 27 lawsuits throughout the country challenging in-state tuition policies for noncitizen students, along with lawsuits against nine universities on claims of racial discrimination in admissions.Under her leadership, the Civil Rights Division dropped pattern-or-practice investigations into police departments and ended consent decrees with cities like Minneapolis and Louisville, a reversal of prior efforts to address police brutality against Black Americans.Dhillon further refused to open investigations into ICE-related shootings, even following the deaths of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge.Attorney General Todd Blanche announced in a post on X that he accepted Dhillon’s resignation and lauded her “conviction” leading the division over the last 18 months.“She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear of favor,” Blanche said. “The department is grateful for her dedicated public service, and we wish her every success in her future endeavors.”Prior to joining the Justice Department in April 2025, Dhillon founded Dhillon Law Group in 2018 to largely litigate on behalf of conservative plaintiffs and issues, and unsuccessfully ran for the Republican National Committee chairmanship in 2023.Dhillon previously told Bloomberg she planned to return to the firm, currently overseen by her brother, following her time at the Justice Department.Justice Connection executive director Stacey Young welcomed Dhillon’s resignation in a statement, slamming her as “the most destructive, lawless and hateful head of the Civil Rights Division in DOJ history.”The organization is made up of former DOJ officials who served throughout the department under Republican and Democratic administrations and have tracked the department as Trump has sought to exert control over it in his second term in office.“After she upended the division’s mission-critical work, the civil servants who dedicated their careers to protecting vulnerable communities were instead told to target them — and more than three-quarters of the division’s lawyers left,” Young said. “Dhillon wielded the enormous power of the Justice Department to threaten universities, state and local officials and election workers in spurious cases that rarely won in court.”Young added the incoming Democrat-controlled Senate should fully use its advice and consent powers when confirming Dhillon’s replacement to ensure they fulfill the division’s congressional mandate to enforce all Americans’ civil rights fairly.“Americans’ civil rights don’t enforce themselves,” Young said. “For almost 70 years, the Civil Rights Division brought to fruition the civil rights laws that Americans demanded. Dhillon decimated it.”The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads