Civil Rights Recast Under Trump’s Vision of Justice Department

The Justice Department’s gutted Civil Rights Division is rebuilding with lawyers steeped in conservative advocacy and Republican politics with a new mission to wage partisan fights and defend gun rights, a Bloomberg Law analysis found.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s recruitment campaign for “civil rights warriors” has netted more than 80 new attorneys to work on cases heavily involving litigation over state voter rolls, immigration, and alleged antisemitism on college campuses.

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DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, established in 1957, has for decades been the federal government’s guardian of voting rights, disability rights, and other civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination in facilities that receive federal funding.

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As a result, more than 300 of the Civil Rights Division’s 400-plus lawyers left in the past 19 months. Most have not been replaced, and at least three new hires have already left, including at least one who was fired, according to two former division lawyers familiar with the matter. The leaner unit under Dhillon’s leadership has pivoted from protecting historically marginalized communities to other conservative priorities, including protecting gun rights and rooting out anti-Christian bias.

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New hires include attorneys with experience from more than 20 conservative legal groups, an internal list of division attorneys through July obtained by Bloomberg Law shows. The organizations include the Stephen Miller-founded America First Legal and the Christian-based American Center for Law & Justice.

Two recent hires, including one in the division’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section, worked at the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Immigration Reform Law Institute, right-wing organizations that advocate for lower levels of immigration.

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Some have explicit ties to the Republican Party, including candidates for office and former congressional aides, the analysis shows. At least four new hires worked as staffers for House and Senate Republicans, and at least 12 served as counsel for Republican governors or worked in state attorneys general offices.

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The hiring changes offer a window into the division’s revamped priorities.

The division’s trial attorneys serve in career roles, historically merit-based and spanning multiple administrations. Traditionally, division attorneys brought experience at organizations that advance civil rights missions, including legal aid groups.

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Perhaps no unit better illustrates the division’s transformation than the newly formed Second Amendment section, created to protect gun rights.

The section is led by Barry Arrington, hired this year after serving as chief legal counsel at the National Association for Gun Rights, which describes itself as “accepting NO COMPROMISE on the issue of gun control.”

He led Justice Department lawsuits against Colorado and Denver over bans on large-capacity magazines and assault-style firearms.

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As Dhillon’s division lodges lawsuits accusing universities of employing discriminatory admissions practices, it has hired at least two lawyers who’ve sued their own law schools for alleged discrimination.

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Under Dhillon’s leadership, section attorneys have filed lawsuits against 30 states and DC demanding access to voter data to identify alleged noncitizen voting and other potential voter fraud. The department has yet to secure a win in these cases, with district court judges ruling against it 23 times so far.

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