The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice was created to protect us. To fight discrimination. To ensure every American, regardless of race, religion, gender, or identity, could live free from hate and injustice. Under the previous administration, it lived up to that mission by holding abusive police officers accountable, challenging voter suppression, and securing justice in some of the most horrific hate crimes in recent memory.

Now, it is being dismantled before our eyes.

The Trump administration has gutted the division. Seasoned civil rights attorneys, many with decades of nonpartisan service, have been forced out, reassigned to meaningless roles, or pressured to resign. The work they were doing to protect people in schools, workplaces, courtrooms, and communities has been abandoned in favor of a political agenda that has nothing to do with civil rights.

Instead of fighting racial discrimination, protecting disabled Americans, or defending voters’ rights, the division has been redirected to focus on things like "Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports" and "Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling." These are not civil rights priorities. They are culture war slogans being enforced through federal power.

Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump loyalist who promoted baseless election fraud claims, is now leading this effort. Entire sections of the Civil Rights Division have been repurposed to serve political goals, while real civil rights enforcement has all but stopped.

This is not a shift in priorities. It is a deliberate sabotage of one of the most important institutions in our democracy. And it cannot stand.

The Department of Justice must reverse these dangerous changes, restore the Civil Rights Division’s original mission, and rehire the dedicated legal professionals who were forced out. 

Sign to demand that the DOJ Civil Rights Division be returned to the people and to justice.

Photo: AP news