Former Justice Department Employees Blast Assistant AG Harmeet Dhillon's Assault on Civil Rights
A group of nearly 300 former employees from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has come forward to denounce Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon's egregious undermining of the division's core mission. The ex-employees claim that under Dhillon's leadership, the division has been transformed into a tool for advancing partisan "lawfare" and dismantling decades-long civil rights initiatives.
Contrary to Dhillon's baseless assertion that departing employees were unwilling to perform their duties, the former staff argue that they left in protest of the administration's radical shift towards pro-MAGA ideology. Many of them worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations, highlighting the unprecedented nature of this current assault on civil rights.
The letter, which details the ex-employees' departures and reasons for leaving, paints a grim picture of the administration's efforts to dismantle voting rights protections, school desegregation laws, and disability rights. The DOJ dropped several high-profile cases alleging racist discrimination, withdrew findings from settlement agreements aimed at holding abusive police departments accountable, and dismissed a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse of immigrant children.
Former employees also accuse Dhillon of orchestrating a coordinated effort to drive them out, including reassigning staff to unrelated positions, demoting others, and threatening layoffs if enough staff refused to resign. The tactics employed by the administration mirror those described by former Trump official Russ Vought, who once threatened to leave civil servants "traumatized" by making them "not want to go to work."
In a stark contrast, the letter praises DOJ employees who chose to stay and continue upholding civil rights despite the challenges posed by this administration. The signatories conclude their letter with a call to action for fellow Americans: "Demand that the Division enforce our civil rights laws and defend the Constitution's promise of equal justice for all."
A group of nearly 300 former employees from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has come forward to denounce Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon's egregious undermining of the division's core mission. The ex-employees claim that under Dhillon's leadership, the division has been transformed into a tool for advancing partisan "lawfare" and dismantling decades-long civil rights initiatives.
Contrary to Dhillon's baseless assertion that departing employees were unwilling to perform their duties, the former staff argue that they left in protest of the administration's radical shift towards pro-MAGA ideology. Many of them worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations, highlighting the unprecedented nature of this current assault on civil rights.
The letter, which details the ex-employees' departures and reasons for leaving, paints a grim picture of the administration's efforts to dismantle voting rights protections, school desegregation laws, and disability rights. The DOJ dropped several high-profile cases alleging racist discrimination, withdrew findings from settlement agreements aimed at holding abusive police departments accountable, and dismissed a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse of immigrant children.
Former employees also accuse Dhillon of orchestrating a coordinated effort to drive them out, including reassigning staff to unrelated positions, demoting others, and threatening layoffs if enough staff refused to resign. The tactics employed by the administration mirror those described by former Trump official Russ Vought, who once threatened to leave civil servants "traumatized" by making them "not want to go to work."
In a stark contrast, the letter praises DOJ employees who chose to stay and continue upholding civil rights despite the challenges posed by this administration. The signatories conclude their letter with a call to action for fellow Americans: "Demand that the Division enforce our civil rights laws and defend the Constitution's promise of equal justice for all."