Civil Rights chief steps down after 18 months
Harmeet Dhillon resigns from the Justice Department, marking the first senior exit since Democrats regained the House and Senate.
By Aiko Soto ·
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has resigned from her position leading the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
The 18-month tenure ended on November 5, 2026, following the midterm elections that returned control of both the House and Senate to the Democratic Party. Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the resignation on the social media platform X. He described Dhillon as a leader who defended civil liberties and enforced the law without fear or favor. Blanche expressed the department's gratitude for her service and wished her success in future endeavors.
Dhillon's time in office was marked by a rapid reorganization of the division. She removed approximately 300 attorneys and replaced them with less experienced staff who aligned with conservative viewpoints. The division, established roughly 70 years ago to combat racial segregation, had long focused on protecting constitutional rights in housing, employment, and policing. Dhillon argued that the unit had historically focused only on the rights of people of color. She shifted the division's mission to aggressively pursue the administration's political priorities.
The division pursued specific enforcement actions aligned with the president's executive orders. These included efforts to end what the department termed radical indoctrination in schools, defend women from gender ideology extremism, and combat antisemitism and anti-Christian bias. In the months before the midterms, the division filed lawsuits against dozens of states demanding voter information to support claims of voter fraud. Courts dismissed these suits after election officials challenged the department's legal standing.
The office also targeted higher education institutions. The division accused several universities and law schools of discriminating against white and Asian students. It specifically sued UCLA and Harvard, alleging that antisemitism was allowed to flourish on their campuses. Critics within the legal community viewed these moves as a departure from the division's traditional role.
Stacey Young, a former division attorney who now leads the alumni group Justice Connection, described Dhillon's leadership as the most destructive in the department's history. Young stated that Dhillon used the department's power to threaten universities and local officials in cases that rarely resulted in a legal victory. Young noted that the division had spent nearly seven decades implementing civil rights laws, a work she said Dhillon undermined.
Dhillon's departure stands as the first high-level exit from the Trump administration's Justice Department since the change in congressional control. The resignation concludes a period of intense legal and political maneuvering by the Civil Rights Division.
