Harmeet Dhillon resigned Thursday from the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which she spent nearly two years reshaping around the Trump administration’s agenda, prompting a mass exodus of career attorneys and criticism from civil rights advocates.
Dhillon told Fox News that she had decided to leave three weeks earlier, before Tuesday's midterm elections, but agreed to delay announcing her departure at the request of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, as the New York Times reports. She said she wanted to return to private practice after accomplishing what she came to Washington to do.
President Donald Trump and other White House officials were reportedly unhappy with Dhillon's recent appearance on 60 Minutes, where she downplayed the prevalence of undocumented immigrants voting, despite the administration's aggressive efforts to investigate alleged noncitizen voting.
Dhillon's tenure was defined by a sharp departure from the Civil Rights Division's traditional mission of combating racial discrimination and protecting voting rights. Under her leadership, the office increasingly focused on the Trump administration's conservative priorities, including challenging diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, investigating universities over alleged antisemitism, and pursuing restrictions on transgender rights.
Her approach, outlined in a series of April 2025 policy memos, prompted hundreds of career employees to leave. According to the Chronicle, Justice Connection, an advocacy organization made up of former Justice Department employees from both parties, reported that departures had reached approximately 75% of the division's workforce by January. The depleted staff left the office struggling to carry out its agenda, including an effort to deploy 1,000 election monitors nationwide.
Former Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who led the division during the Biden administration and is now general counsel of the NAACP, sharply criticized Dhillon's record.
“From Day 1, Harmeet Dhillon abdicated her responsibility to enforce our nation’s federal civil rights laws and destroyed the crown jewel of the Justice Department,” Clarke said, speaking to the Times.
Among Dhillon's targets were universities accused of discrimination in admissions and campus policies, as part of the Trump administration’s effort to pursue antisemitism-related cases against California's UC campuses, which largely failed to gain traction. She reportedly visited UC Berkeley last November alongside Justice Department and FBI officials after arrests outside a Turning Point USA event at Zellerbach Hall, promising a federal investigation into the school's security response.
The Chronicle reports that her office recently threatened legal action against UC Berkeley School of Law and UCSF's medical school over alleged discrimination against white and Asian students, while ending longstanding school desegregation agreements with more than 50 jurisdictions.
Further criticism followed her division's decision not to investigate the fatal ICE shooting of Renée Good earlier this year and revelations about a plan to share sensitive voter information with the Department of Homeland Security.
In her resignation letter to Trump, Dhillon cited what she considered major accomplishments, including lawsuits against DEI programs, challenges to transgender participation in women's sports, prosecutions of anti-Jewish hate crimes, and the creation of the division's first Second Amendment section.
Dhillon was also a longtime figure in San Francisco Republican politics, previously serving as chair of the San Francisco Republican Party before becoming California's Republican National Committeewoman. Per the Chronicle, she founded Dhillon Law Group and the Center for American Liberty and was part the legal team for Trump's campaign.
As SFist reported in 2023, Dhillon unsuccessfully challenged Ronna McDaniel to become chair of the Republican National Committee. That same year, Dhillon was accused of transferring $1.3 million from a nonprofit she led to her own law firm.
Other notable clients includes former Google engineer James Damore, who was fired after circulating an internal memo criticizing the company's diversity initiatives. Dhillon also pursued a short-lived lawsuit challenging San Francisco's 2020 safe sleeping site at the former Haight Street McDonald's.
Her earlier civil liberties work included defending the Sikh community against discrimination following the September 11 attacks. She also served on the ACLU of Northern California's board from 2002 to 2005 and briefly led a domestic violence nonprofit in Santa Clara County.
The Justice Department has not announced a permanent successor.
Related: SF Attorney Harmeet Dhillon Might Be Elected Chair of the Republican National Committee This Week
