An Update on the Civil Rights Division

Last week, I wrote to you about Losing the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. At that time, media reports confirmed that about a dozen top people had been reassigned to jobs so far beneath their level of experience and specific expertise that it was tantamount to firing them. The dozen included the senior career official in the Voting Rights Section. I wrote that many Civil Rights Division employees were preparing to leave the Justice Department.

The new head of the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, was on the Glenn Beck podcast over the weekend. That, in and of itself, is enough to raise the hairs on the back of the neck of anyone who understands the Justice Department’s non-political mission. Dhillion said in the interview that as many as 100 lawyers in the division have left the department since she began redefining how civil rights laws will be enforced during her tenure, which is more like, they won’t be enforced unless you’re white, Christian, or anti-abortion.

This is how Beck’s podcast describes the episode: “Is there really a ‘bloodbath’ in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice? Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the DOJ, joins Glenn to discuss firebombing at Christian churches, ‘violence’ against free speech, and the fate of the innocent people persecuted under the Biden administration. Harmeet reveals how the FACE Act doesn’t just protect abortion centers but pro-life pregnancy centers as well, says it’s time for violent activists to be prosecuted, and explains why ‘you don’t have to sue everybody.’ Then, she and Glenn break down anti-Semitism on college campuses, her focus on the Second Amendment, and her advice to Congress to prevent a repeat of COVID-19 government tyranny.”

So, pretty much the typical mission for the crown jewel of the Justice Department, the lawyers who take on the mission of protecting civil rights for the most marginalized people in our society. Gandhi said that “A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” Others have picked up that refrain, noting that we should be judged by how we treat those who are easiest to ignore, people who are poor, homeless, incarcerated, ill, and so on. That’s what the Civil Rights Division does. It ensures that police don’t stomp on the rights of people who lack the power to respond. It keeps landlords from discriminating against minorities. It ensures we are all able to exercise our right to vote. But apparently, that’s not how it’s going to work under the Trump administration.

When Beck asked Dhillon about the “bloodbath” allegations, she responded that she had told Civil Rights Division employees that “These are the president’s priorities, this is what we will be focusing on, govern yourself accordingly.” She claimed that after she explained that the traditional priorities were done, “dozens and now over 100 attorneys decided that they’re rather not do what their job requires them to do, and I think that’s fine. Because we don’t want people in the federal government who feel like it’s their pet project to go persecute police departments based on statistical evidence or persecute people praying outside abortion facilities instead of doing violence. That’s not the job here—the job here is to enforce the federal civil rights law, not woke ideology.”

Dhillon, who was among the lawyers arguing that election fraud cost Trump the election in 2020, is apparently a true believer. Tonight, the website for the Civil Rights Division has a starkly different headline than it did when I referenced it in last week’s piece.

There is worse news today. Sam Levine at the Guardian is reporting that Trump’s DOJ appointees have “removed all of the senior civil servants working as managers in the department’s voting section and directed attorneys to dismiss all active cases, according to people familiar with the matter, part of a broader attack on the department’s civil rights division.” It’s a massive attack on the protection the Department provides to the right to vote. We are squaring up for a battle heading into the 2026 midterm elections. As I’ve written before, I don’t believe Trump will be able to cancel them outright. Instead, the fight will be over whether we can have free and fair elections in this environment, and it’s going to be up to all of us to find a place to plug in and be involved.

Two of Trump’s lawyers, having a conversation about the future of the Justice Department after he won the 2024 election.

The Division has now been forced to dismiss two of its three remaining voting rights cases (we not infrequently had more than three just in Alabama during my tenure), both of which involved Voting Rights Act challenges to local elections. In Georgia, U.S. v. Houston County, was dismissed on the government’s motion, and in Pennsylvania, U.S. v. Hazelton met the same fate. There is a third case that a judge has stayed for now. This follows the dismissal of major cases since Trump took office including the challenge to the Georgia law that made it more difficult for people to vote, a gerrymandering challenge in Texas, and of course, the cases we discussed ahead of the election in Alabama and Virginia, where the states aggressively removed people from the voter rolls after the deadlines for doing so, based on unproven allegations that noncitizens were going to vote.

It’s not just the Voting Rights section. Much of the work the Division has done, often with little fanfare but major impact, will go away, at least while Donald Trump is in office.

If gutting the Civil Rights Division is the shot, a new executive order from Donald Trump is the chaser. Late Today, Trump unleashed a new EO, titled “STRENGTHENING AND UNLEASHING AMERICA’S LAW ENFORCEMENT TO PURSUE CRIMINALS AND PROTECT INNOCENT CITIZENS.” Trump writes, “My Administration is steadfastly committed to empowering State and local law enforcement to firmly police dangerous criminal behavior and protect innocent citizens.” This reminds me of when Trump spoke to a police chiefs’ association and told them not to be too careful about banging people’s heads on police cars when they put them in after arrests. At the time, he thought he was funny and there was laughter and applause in the room.

Now that same mentality will be applied to policing nationwide, and the Civil Rights Division, which has held the line on police excessive force and misconduct from Ferguson, MO, to George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis will be out of commission. Trump again: “When local leaders demonize law enforcement and impose legal and political handcuffs that make aggressively enforcing the law impossible, crime thrives and innocent citizens and small business owners suffer. My Administration will therefore: establish best practices at the State and local level for cities to unleash high-impact local police forces; protect and defend law enforcement officers wrongly accused and abused by State or local officials; and surge resources to officers in need.”

When Trump talks about “unleashing” police here, he’s talking about unleashing them from the wise constraints of the Constitution. That’s what this decimation of the Civil Rights Division is about. When the career people, the experts at civil and criminal enforcement in this area, are removed from their positions there is no one there to protect us. And as we’ve learned from Trump’s deportations to El Salvador, when due process is denied to one person, we are all at risk. The news from the Justice Department tonight, on the eve of Trump’s 100th day in office, is deeply disturbing.

Thank you for being here with me at Civil Discourse as we take stock of this sad milestone and prepare to preserve our democracy nonetheless. It’s going to take all of us, staying informed and working together, to do this. If you’ve been enjoying the free posts, upgrading to a paid subscription is a great way to help keep the newsletter coming and to contribute to the time and resources it takes to stay on top of law, politics, and this administration.

We’re in this together,

Joyce