WASHINGTON — Harmeet Dhillon resigned Thursday as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, ending a tenure marked by a broad shift toward President Donald Trump’s priorities and the departure of hundreds of career employees.
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that he had accepted Dhillon’s resignation, praising her leadership of the division over the past 18 months. Her exit came two days after Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections.
Dhillon said her decision preceded the election. According to Bloomberg Law, she had previously told allies she planned to leave after the midterms and had discussed returning to her California-based law firm.
“She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor,” Blanche wrote in announcing her departure.
Dhillon, a conservative attorney and longtime Trump ally, took over the division in April 2025. She redirected its work toward challenges to diversity initiatives, investigations into alleged antisemitism at universities and expanded enforcement involving gun rights and religious liberty.
The changes drew criticism from former Justice Department attorneys who said the division was retreating from its longstanding responsibility to protect communities facing discrimination. More than three-quarters of the employees who worked in the division at the start of Trump’s second term left, according to The Associated Press.
Under Dhillon, the division also abandoned police reform investigations and settlements while pursuing universities over admissions practices, diversity policies and their handling of antisemitism complaints. Dhillon defended the changes as necessary to carry out the administration’s interpretation of federal civil rights law.
Before joining the administration, Dhillon founded the Dhillon Law Group and the Center for American Liberty. Her legal practice included First Amendment litigation, civil rights cases and election law. The Senate confirmed her on April 3, 2025, and she was sworn in four days later.
