Harmeet Dhillon Resigns as Head of DOJ Civil Rights Division

Harmeet Dhillon resigned on 5 November as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that he had accepted the resignation. He said Dhillon had led the division with conviction for the past 18 months and defended the civil liberties of every American.

Dhillon confirmed the decision in a post on X. She wrote that serving as AAG for Civil Rights had been the honor of a lifetime and that the division had ushered in the downfall of illegal DEI and fought to protect women and girls’ sports. She thanked President Trump for the opportunity. In a text to USA Today she said the jobs are tough, that she had accomplished what she came to do, and that it was time. She cited a grueling schedule after the deaths of her husband and father before the 2024 election and said she would return to private practice.

In a resignation letter seen by CBS News, Dhillon said she had told White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in early October that she intended to step down after the midterm elections. Two sources told CBS that President Trump demanded she be fired after watching her 18 October appearance on 60 Minutes discussing election integrity efforts. Other reporting indicated she had grown frustrated at not receiving a promotion and wanted to return to her firm, The Dhillon Law Group, which had lost some attorneys.

Dhillon is the first high-ranking Trump ally to leave the administration since Democrats captured majorities in the House and Senate in the 3 November midterms. During her tenure the division saw a mass departure of career staff. She stated publicly that roughly 75 percent of the lawyers, about 300 of 400, had left in the first seven months. She recruited conservative lawyers to fill some of the vacancies. The division dropped pattern-or-practice investigations into police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville and ended related consent decrees. It launched probes and lawsuits against universities, including two against Harvard that federal judges later dismissed. It also sent approximately 1,000 election monitors to polling sites in all 50 states for the first time.

Kristen Clarke, former assistant attorney general for civil rights under the Biden administration and now NAACP general counsel, said Dhillon had abdicated her responsibility to enforce federal civil rights laws and destroyed the crown jewel of the Justice Department. Dhillon’s supporters pointed to the shift in priorities toward what the administration described as protecting women in sports, addressing antisemitism on campuses, and opposing DEI programs.

The resignation comes as Democrats prepare to take control of congressional committees that can investigate the department. Dhillon had told allies before the election that she planned to leave afterward. Blanche’s statement did not link the departure to the midterm results. The division remains understaffed relative to its pre-2025 levels. No successor has been named.

Dhillon’s 18-month tenure produced a clear change in the division’s enforcement focus. Career attorneys who left described the shift as a rejection of prior priorities. The department has not released a full accounting of open matters or staffing levels at the time of her departure. She returns to private practice after a period in which the division filed numerous cases aligned with administration goals and faced multiple court setbacks.