Justice Department veterans fear Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Civil Rights Division signals that his administration will invert its legal purpose.
The president-elect picked conservative San Francisco attorney Harmeet Dhillon – a prominent anti-"woke" activist – to lead the division, and if confirmed she would be in position to reverse many of president Joe Biden's civil rights initiatives, in particular policies aimed at promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, reported CNN.
“The Civil Rights Division’s historical mandate from the beginning was to help fight against othering, was to help fight against societal branding of certain Americans as other,” said Justin Levitt, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division under Barack Obama, "and I am concerned the prospective nominee’s approach has been to lean into branding people as other rather than fighting against it.”
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Levitt worries the incoming administration will focus the division's efforts away from ending discrimination against minority groups and toward ending policies aimed at protecting them, but Dhillon's former colleagues say the Indian-born immigrant had worked in the past to advocate for asylum seekers and more recently on First Amendment issues.
“She advocates so hard for each one of her clients,” said Mark Trammell, executive director and general counsel for the Center of American Liberty advocacy group founded by Dhillon. “There’s just tremendous opportunity to do good for people who have been oppressed, and Harmeet loves this country. She loves the freedoms that we all benefit from.”
The Civil Rights Division, which was established in the 1950s and was tasked with enforcing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, typically lies dormant during Republican administrations, but a source familiar with the plans say the incoming Trump administration intends to push a conservative view on civil rights.
"A key early sign of the ideological shift could emerge in the federal government’s challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors," CNN reported. "The Supreme Court heard arguments last week in the challenge, which was brought by Clarke’s Civil Rights Division in 2023."
Dhillon has shown a hostility toward trans rights, and it's possible she and Trump’s solicitor general could flip the Justice Department's position in that case, which could result in the Supreme Court dropping the case.
"On the DEI front, Dhillon would be able to throw the full weight of the division behind legal challenges to policies from public schools and other state and local employers that the new administration opposes," CNN reported. "She would be limited in her ability to take private businesses to court over such issues, Levitt said. Still, the division could file friend-of-the-court briefs in cases brought by other plaintiffs against companies over their hiring and personnel practices."