'Ideological shift': Trump taps conservative lawyer to eviscerate DOJ’s Biden-era civil rights initiatives

11 December 2024

Harmeet Dhillon, a right-wing attorney based in Northern California, is President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) civil rights division. If Dhillon is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she would possibly be reporting to former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi — who Trump nominated for U.S. attorney general after former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) withdrew from consideration for that position.

According to CNN, Dhillon "is expected to use the powerful perch to reverse many of the Biden Administration's civil rights initiatives."

CNN reporters Paula Reid, Devan Cole, Katelyn Polantz and Casey Gannon, in an article published on December 11, explain, "If confirmed, Dhillon would be in a position to upend the division's work on a range of hot-button areas, including transgender rights, voting and policing. In particular, the division is expected to try to dismantle DEI policies at schools, government agencies and other public institutions, according to the sources familiar with the planning."

Trump, the journalists note, has praised Dhillon for "suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers."

"A longtime litigator, including for Trump, she's also been involved in a host of First Amendment lawsuits, disputes over COVID-19 restrictions and cases concerning gender-affirming care," the CNN reporters observe. "Decisions by schools and employers to embrace DEI initiatives have come under fierce opposition from the right in recent years. Critics say DEI programs are discriminatory and attempt to solve racial discrimination by disadvantaging other groups, particularly white Americans. But supporters insist the decades-old practice has been politicized and widely misunderstood."

The journalists point out that "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," adding, "The Supreme Court heard arguments last week in the challenge, which was brought by Clarke’s Civil Rights Division in 2023."

One DOJ alumni who has strong reservations about Dhillon is Justin Levitt, who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division under President Barack Obama.

Levitt told 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. And I am concerned the prospective nominee's approach has been to lean into branding people as other rather than fighting against it."

Read CNN's full report at this link.

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