• Analysis
Harmeet Dhillon resignation: DOJ civil rights division head steps down after 18 months
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general and head of the justice department's civil rights division, is leaving her position, announced by Attorney General Todd Blanche in a post on X.
Attorney general announces acceptance
The Harmeet Dhillon resignation was confirmed by Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said on X that he had accepted the departure of the civil rights division head, who ran the division for the past 18 months.
She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor.
Blanche wrote those words in his post, adding that the department wished her success.
First senior departure after midterms
Dhillon is the first high-ranking justice department official to leave after the midterm elections in which Democrats took control of Congress, a departure first reported by Bloomberg Law. Democrats are expected to use their new congressional power to aggressively investigate executive agencies, including the justice department.
A divisive tenure at the division
The report describes a division reoriented away from its traditional role of protecting the civil rights of minorities. Under Dhillon it dropped many discrimination cases involving voting, housing, employment and education, while pursuing claims at universities that minorities were unfairly favored in admissions and that Jewish students faced antisemitism.
Other elements of her record as described in the report:
- •A whistleblower said university investigations were conducted with a predetermined outcome, and that lawyers were told to find a reason to file a lawsuit.
- •The division sued more than two dozen states for voter roll information and lost every case, with several judges appointed by Donald Trump ruling against it.
- •It oversaw investigations into the killings of US citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good by federal agents in Minnesota during an immigration enforcement surge; neither resulted in criminal charges.
- •Scores of career lawyers left the division, producing an exodus of civil rights enforcement expertise.
- •A prolific X poster, Dhillon sometimes revealed civil rights investigations on the platform, breaking the department's longstanding practice of not speaking publicly about them.
- •She has publicly used a slur for people with disabilities and described conservative influencers as "hoes".
Stacey Young, a former civil rights division lawyer who leads Justice Connection, was scathing in her assessment.
Harmeet Dhillon has been the most destructive, lawless and hateful head of the civil rights division in DoJ history.
Young said more than three-quarters of the division's lawyers left after Dhillon upended its work, and that she used the justice department's power to threaten universities, state and local officials, and election workers in spurious cases that rarely won in court.
Who is Harmeet Dhillon
Dhillon was born in India, lived in the UK and New York, and grew up in Smithfield, North Carolina. She told the Dartmouth alumni magazine last year that there were Klan signs on the highway where she grew up, and that her superpower was not really caring what people think.
Before joining the government, she ran her own law firm and served as vice-chair of the California GOP, and after the 2020 election she worked on lawsuits contesting the results. Her resignation was accepted by Attorney General Todd Blanche, making her the first high-ranking justice department official to leave since the midterm elections.
