The U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division—long a sentinel against discrimination and systemic abuse—has seen nearly 370 employees walk out the door since Donald Trump assumed the presidency. What was once a stable bastion of career lawyers and investigators across party lines has now become the epicenter of a dramatic ideological overhaul.
A new memo released by Senator Peter Welch reveals that the division has lost 368 personnel—270 through deferred retirement and 98 resignations—since Trump took office. That’s more than the entire legal staff the division held before 2017. While exact attorney numbers weren’t disclosed, the scope of the departures signals a brain drain of historic proportions.
The reason, Welch suggests, is clear: mission drift. Or more accurately, mission abandonment.
The Civil Rights Division, created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and strengthened over decades to confront discrimination based on race, gender, disability, and more, has now pivoted under the Trump administration’s hand-picked leadership toward dismantling the very policies it once enforced. Welch didn’t mince words: the division is “no longer fulfilling its statutory responsibilities” and is instead “facilitating violations” as part of a broader political project.
At the center of this shift is Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s appointed chief of the division, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee for the first time this week. Dhillon has unapologetically redirected the office’s focus away from civil rights enforcement and toward rooting out diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies—labeling them “discrimination in disguise.”
Under her tenure, the division rescinded key investigative findings issued during President Biden’s administration that exposed patterns of racial and disability-related abuse by police departments. She also withdrew pending agreements to reform the Minneapolis and Louisville police forces—departments mired in controversy following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
What’s replacing traditional civil rights enforcement? Investigations into DEI practices at universities, law schools, and medical institutions. Dhillon has publicly targeted campuses like the University of California and George Mason University, claiming discrimination against non-minorities or antisemitic practices disguised as inclusion efforts.
The internal upheaval hasn’t gone unnoticed by the career staff. Many were reportedly directed to abandon active discrimination cases against people of color, while being reassigned to scrutinize affirmative action and hiring practices in institutions promoting DEI.
According to Dhillon, these probes aren’t arbitrary—they’re sparked by whistleblowers and tips from the public. Since April alone, her office has opened cases against 15 universities, 16 elite law schools, and seven medical programs.
But critics say the result is unmistakable: a division once charged with fighting bigotry has been reengineered to chase after it under a new name.
In Welch’s words: “Are we going to save the Civil Rights Division—or dismantle it?” The exodus of nearly 400 dedicated civil rights defenders may already speak louder than the hearings ever could.
