Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said that roughly three-quarters of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division staff have departed since she took office, citing a shift in enforcement priorities and a federal retirement package during a segment for Breitbart News Sunday.
Dhillon, who was sworn in earlier this year, noted that about 200 of the division’s 400-plus attorneys accepted a government-wide retirement package in her second week in office. She added that another 100 lawyers resigned in the following months, leaving the division down “75 percent” of its prior workforce. Dhillon explained the department is now working to rehire attorneys “who want to do the work as Congress wrote the laws and the courts interpreted the laws.”
She emphasized that the division’s focus is shifting away from what she described as “politics of racial spoils and woke ideology” toward enforcing existing statutes across a wide range of areas. These include university admissions policies, employment discrimination cases involving federal contractors and grant recipients, protections for service members and their families, and statutes related to workplace rights for American citizens vis-à-vis foreign workers.
Dhillon highlighted the department’s increased involvement in religious liberty cases, including challenges to vaccine mandates, a case in Washington State involving Catholic confessional privilege, and enforcement of the FACE Act to protect congregants at houses of worship as well as protesters.
On election law, Dhillon confirmed that the Civil Rights Division sent a letter to Texas regarding redistricting concerns under the Voting Rights Act. She stated recent case law in the Fifth Circuit limited the use of so-called “coalition districts” and contributed to Texas’s decision to redraw its maps.
Addressing campus unrest following the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack in Israel, Dhillon stressed the DOJ has moved quickly to investigate antisemitism at universities, often resulting in federal funding being suspended or withdrawn. She told Breitbart News this work is part of an “all of government” approach initiated by the White House.
While defending free speech protections, Dhillon underscored her office’s distinction between constitutionally protected expression and conduct that denies students access to education or violates civil rights. “You can criticize Israel. It’s absolutely appropriate to do that. It’s a free country,” she remarked. “But you can’t interfere with another person’s access to their education or their own liberty.”
Asked about the broader civil rights challenges facing the country, Dhillon pointed to what she described as a culture of self-censorship in workplaces, schools, and public life. “Most people in America feel like they have to lie throughout the day to get by,” she observed, calling for more citizens to speak openly and defend their rights.
Looking ahead, Dhillon added the division plans to expand as new hires are brought in. “We have tons of resumes,” she commented, “and as that hiring authority trickles through … we will be staffing up.”
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