The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, joined by more than 80 prominent national organizations, has delivered a scathing letter to congressional leaders demanding immediate and robust oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
The letter, addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), and Sen. Charles Schumer (D- N.Y.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the chambers’ minority leaders, accuses the DOJ division — now under the leadership of Trump loyalist Harmeet Dhillon—of abandoning its mandate and weaponizing civil rights enforcement to further the president’s political agenda.
“In a reversal of historic proportion, the Civil Rights Division is upending civil rights enforcement principles and practices — which have been in place since its inception in 1957 — in favor of promoting a virulent, discriminatory agenda directly traceable to the president that targets the very communities Congress intended to protect by passing civil rights laws,” the letter states.
The coalition includes the NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center, ACLU, League of Women Voters, Human Rights Campaign, National Urban League, and the AFL-CIO, among others. They warn that the DOJ’s shift could cause “irreparable harm” to civil rights protections for decades.
The letter cites the abrupt shift in mission statements under Dhillon’s leadership, which now prioritizes President Trump’s executive orders over federal civil rights laws. Internal directives sent to DOJ staff instruct attorneys to pursue investigations based on Trump’s policies, including controversial orders such as “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias” and “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” while downplaying enforcement of longstanding civil rights protections like the Voting Rights Act.
“The zealous and faithful pursuit of this section’s mission requires the full dedication of this section’s resources, attention, and energy to the priorities of the president,” Dhillon wrote in a revised mission statement to the Education Section, effectively erasing reference to protections for historically marginalized communities.
The coalition’s concerns go beyond policy shifts. According to recent estimates, over 250 attorneys — nearly 70% of the Civil Rights Division’s legal staff — have resigned, taken deferred resignation offers, or been reassigned, leaving some sections, such as the one tasked with ensuring nondiscrimination by recipients of federal funds, entirely without attorneys. The leadership vacuum, they say, has crippled enforcement capabilities and hollowed out decades of institutional expertise.
Career officials have been reassigned or demoted, and political appointees have reportedly taken over nonpartisan roles, including the voting section, in violation of federal hiring policies. In one example cited, the DOJ failed to publicly post a vacancy or consider internal career staff before installing a former Trump appointee as acting chief.
The letter also documents a wide-scale retreat from civil rights enforcement:
- Voting rights cases have been dismissed without explanation, including lawsuits challenging voter suppression laws in Georgia, Texas, Alabama, and Virginia.
- Consent decrees addressing police brutality and unconstitutional policing practices in cities like Minneapolis and Louisville were abandoned, even as the nation marked the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder.
- A decades-old school desegregation consent decree in Louisiana was vacated, with Dhillon claiming it “freed the local school district of federal oversight.”
- An environmental justice settlement aimed at addressing health disparities in Alabama’s Black Belt was terminated.
- The DOJ reversed its position in a Supreme Court case regarding gender-affirming care for transgender minors and dropped a lawsuit on behalf of a transgender inmate who self-castrated while waiting for treatment.
- A civil rights investigation was launched against Chicago after Mayor Brandon Johnson highlighted the number of Black officials in his administration and against universities that promoted inclusive admissions policies.
“This administration has sunk to a new low by jettisoning longstanding civil rights enforcement principles in favor of strict adherence to President Trump’s extremist and illegal executive orders,” the letter reads. “The intense focus on implementing President Trump’s spiteful, white nationalist agenda is an alarming departure from the Civil Rights Division’s congressional mandate to enforce civil rights laws.”
The organizations urge Congress to conduct oversight hearings, launch investigations, and utilize all available tools to prevent further erosion of civil rights protections. They emphasize that the division was established through the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to enforce key federal protections such as the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Acts, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, among others.“We deserve better. We deserve — and Congress must require — a Civil Rights Division that protects and advances the rights of all people in America,” the letter concludes. “The civil rights of every single American are at stake.”
