Harmeet Dhillon resigns as Justice Department civil rights chief

Harmeet Dhillon resigned Thursday as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division after 18 months in which she redirected its work, presided over a major staff exodus and pursued a series of lawsuits seeking state voter records.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that he had accepted her resignation. “She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor,” he wrote on X, thanking her for her public service. Blanche did not give a reason for her departure.

Dhillon, an ally of President Donald Trump, is the first high-ranking Justice Department official to leave since Tuesday’s midterm elections, in which Democrats took control of Congress, The Guardian reported. The outlet said Democrats are expected to investigate executive agencies, including the department.

Under Dhillon, the division shifted away from much of its longstanding work on discrimination against racial minorities. It dropped cases involving allegations of discrimination in voting, housing, employment and education, while pursuing claims at universities involving admissions practices and antisemitism against Jewish students. CBS News reported that the division also focused on gun owners’ rights and took legal positions opposing civil rights protections for transgender people.

More than three-quarters of the division’s staff departed during her tenure, according to CBS News. The department dismissed more than 50 decades-old school consent decrees, many in the Deep South, that had protected Black students from unlawful discrimination, the outlet reported. It also abandoned pending agreements with the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments following investigations prompted by the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and withdrew misconduct findings concerning six other police departments.

The division’s response to the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minnesota also drew scrutiny. CBS News reported that it did not initially open criminal civil rights investigations into either shooting, but later became involved in the Pretti case after criticism of the decision to have Homeland Security Investigations lead the probe. No charges have been filed in that case, which state officials are also investigating. The Guardian reported that neither shooting has resulted in criminal charges.

Voting records became another focus. The division filed 31 lawsuits, largely against Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia, seeking unredacted voter rolls, CBS News reported. Department lawyers said they needed the records to check compliance with federal voter-list laws, but later acknowledged in court that they intended to share the information with the Department of Homeland Security for criminal and immigration enforcement purposes. CBS News reported 27 losses in those cases; The Guardian described the department as having lost every case it brought against more than two dozen states. On Tuesday, the division sent more than 1,000 monitors to polling places, a record number, CBS News reported.

Stacey Young, a former division lawyer who founded the advocacy group Justice Connection, called Dhillon “the most destructive, lawless, and hateful head of the Civil Rights Division in DOJ history.” Young said the departure of experienced lawyers had weakened civil rights enforcement.

Before joining the department, Dhillon ran a San Francisco law firm and served as vice-chair of the California Republican Party, The Guardian reported. She frequently used X to discuss the division’s work and sometimes announced investigations there.