Justice Department's Civil Rights Division Sees Mass Exodus Amid Sweeping Policy Overhaul

Int'l Business Times

29-04-2025

A dramatic shake-up is underway in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, where an estimated 70% of employees are expected to take advantage of a "deferred resignation" program, allowing them to leave their positions while still receiving pay through September.
The division, which employed around 340 people, saw a Monday deadline for employees to accept the offer, CNN reported.
Over the weekend, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon confirmed that more than 100 attorneys had already opted in.
Speaking on Glenn Beck's podcast, Dhillon criticized the outgoing staff, saying, "Now, over 100 attorneys decided that they'd rather not do what their job requires them to do, and I think that's fine."
She also described the department's new mission as one aimed at combating "woke ideology."
"We don't want people in the federal government who feel like it's their pet project to go persecute" police departments, she said. "The job here is to enforce the federal civil rights laws, not woke ideology."
Sources close to the matter said the final tally could exceed 200 staff members -- a mass exodus that would slash the workforce to nearly a third of its original size.
"No one has been fired by me since I came ... But what we have made very clear last week in memos to each of the 11 sections in the Civil Rights Division is that our priorities under President Trump are going to be somewhat different than they were under President Biden," Dhillon had previously stated in an interview.
The resignations have surged since the reopening of the administration's deferred resignation program. The program allows civil rights staffers to formally resign but remain on payroll for several more months. As the Monday deadline has now passed, the department faces a significant reduction in personnel, including lawyers and non-lawyer support staff, the New York Times reported.
Shift in priorities sparks concern
At the heart of the exodus is a fundamental reorientation of the Civil Rights Division's goals. Under Dhillon and Attorney General Pam Bondi, the division is being redirected to prioritize efforts such as dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, challenging transgender protections, and increasing investigations into antisemitism and anti-Christian bias.
"The prior administration's arguments in transgender inmate cases were based on junk science," Dhillon said. "The prior administration's nonsensical reading of the Americans With Disabilities Act was an affront to the very people the statute intended to protect."
Longstanding work dismantled, officials say
Traditionally, the Civil Rights Division has focused on protecting marginalized communities, enforcing voting rights, and addressing systemic discrimination. However, insiders say that new mission statements have rendered much of that historic work unrecognizable.
Civil rights lawyers have been reassigned to probe antisemitism on college campuses, particularly in connection with protests against Israel's actions in Gaza. According to sources, the investigations are aimed at medical schools that receive substantial federal grants -- seen by the Trump administration as leverage to enforce new conduct standards.
Another group of attorneys is now working on cases described as "protecting women's sports," a phrase used by officials to justify investigations that restrict transgender student-athletes from participating in teams aligned with their gender identity.
Matthew B. Ross, a Northeastern University professor and frequent expert witness in consent decree cases, described the departures as a "mass exodus" with far-reaching consequences.
"We're going multiple steps backwards in terms of modernizing law enforcement in this country, and it's quite unfortunate," Ross said.