DOJ Civil Rights Chief Harmeet Dhillon Resigns After Midterms
Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, has resigned after about 18 months in the job, ending a tenure that dramatically reshaped one of the department's best-known offices.
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on Thursday, Nov. 5, that he had accepted her resignation. In a post on X, Blanche said Dhillon led the division "with conviction" and "enforced the law without fear or favor." He thanked her for her "dedicated public service" and wished her "every success in her future endeavors," CBS News reported.
Dhillon Says the Choice Was Hers
The resignation came just days after Democrats won the House and flipped the Senate in the midterm elections. But Dhillon told Fox News Digital that she made the decision weeks earlier and was not pushed out.
"I wasn't asked to resign," she said. "I resigned three weeks ago, and Susie asked me to please wait until after the midterms." She was referring to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
Dhillon said she had accomplished what she set out to do and plans to return to private practice. She said she moved to Washington to serve her country after the deaths of her husband and father, and that after about two years, it was time to go. "My decision, my choice. It's time," she said.
Asked whether she would testify before Congress if subpoenaed, Dhillon said she "would certainly take legal counsel and follow it in that regard." The department has not named who will lead the division next.
A Major Shift in Priorities
President Donald Trump nominated Dhillon in December 2024, and the Senate confirmed her in April 2025. A longtime San Francisco lawyer, she founded the Dhillon Law Group and the Center for American Liberty before joining the administration.
Under her leadership, the division moved its focus toward fighting diversity, equity and inclusion policies, religious discrimination cases, opposing transgender athletes in women's sports, gun owners' rights and what supporters call election integrity. "We changed it, and that's what we came here to do. And it's done," Dhillon told Fox News Digital.
She said she recruited more than 130 lawyers to rebuild the division. Fox News reported that roughly 300 attorneys left during Trump's second term, while CBS News reported that more than 75% of the division's staff departed in 2025.
Critics Say the Division Was "Decimated"
Civil rights advocates sharply criticized her record. According to CBS News, the division closed many cases involving discrimination against Black Americans and dismissed more than 50 decades-old consent decrees with public schools, many in the Deep South, that were meant to protect Black students.
The division also dropped consent decrees with police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville and rescinded misconduct findings against six other departments.
It filed 31 lawsuits, mostly against Democratic-led states and Washington, D.C., seeking unredacted voter rolls, and has lost 27 of them, CBS reported. The department later acknowledged in court that it intended to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security. During the midterms, the division sent a record of more than 1,000 election monitors to polling sites.
Critics also faulted the division for not opening criminal civil rights investigations after federal immigration agents killed two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis, a break from longstanding practice. The division later became involved in the Pretti case, but no charges have been filed.
Stacey Young, a former division attorney who founded the advocacy group Justice Connection, called Dhillon the most destructive head of the division in the Justice Department's history and said she "decimated" it.
What Comes Next
The Hill described Dhillon's resignation as the first major exit from the Trump administration since the midterms. Dhillon told Fox News Digital that if she is called to testify after leaving, executive privilege would limit what she could discuss.
Asked whether she had discussed a possible pardon with Trump, Dhillon said, "I have no idea. I haven't ever discussed that with him, asked for it."
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