Donald Trump issued scores of executive orders to begin his second term as president, many of which addressed contentious culture war themes including abortion rights, transgender concerns, and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. It will be primarily the responsibility of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department to enforce the administration’s stance on such matters.
The Civil Rights Division has experienced significant policy changes during previous transitions between Democratic and Republican administrations. For instance, the division concentrated resources on combating religious prejudice during the George W. Bush administration. Preventing racial and ethnic prejudice became a top priority for the division after Barack Obama assumed office.
The anticipated magnitude of the changes in civil rights policy between the Trump and Biden administrations may surpass the magnitude of previous transitions.
Advocates and former Justice Department officials told NBC News that they anticipate the new administration quickly implementing broad reversals of the majority of the Biden administration’s civil rights policy. The Trump-run department has already withdrawn from several cases filed during the Biden administration and issued a letter halting all civil rights activity, including filings and settlements.
The Civil Rights Division has seen staff changes under the Trump administration, similar to those in other areas of the Justice Department. According to a DOJ insider familiar with the situation, the top two officials in its appellate section have been moved to a new task force that will bring charges against sanctuary city officials who fail to assist federal immigration enforcement.
Conservative California attorney
Trump appointed 56-year-old California attorney Harmeet Dhillon to spearhead the case. Dhillon has accused Google of discriminating against white men, accused the company of election fraud in 2020, and spoken out against state laws protecting physicians who perform gender-affirming surgery on transgender youngsters.
Obama’s deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, Justin Levitt, voiced worry about Dhillon’s candidacy, stating that the majority of her casework has dealt with issues of cultural grievance.
He contended that Dhillon has mostly ignored the Civil Rights Division’s basic role, which was founded by the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which forbids discrimination against all Americans, with an emphasis on vulnerable groups.
“There is still, unfortunately, no shortage of discrimination in America today,” Levitt said, adding that many of the nation’s civil rights laws were created to safeguard and protect the civil rights, especially of underrepresented and underprivileged communities.
Awaiting Senate confirmation, Dhillon remained silent. A request for comment from the Justice Department was not answered.
During Trump’s first term, Jesse Panuccio, an acting associate attorney general in the Justice Department, commended Trump and Dhillon for their assertiveness.
Other Republican administrations have either lacked the experience or the guts to take these actions, and it seems President Trump is going all out this time in his second term following everything he has had to deal with, Panuccio said. No period of adjustment exists. They expect professional officials to faithfully carry out those policy decisions, and they are beginning Day One to implement the agenda he ran on.
“They’re not going to mince words this time, and I believe they’re going to make sure the Civil Rights Division is consistent with the president’s priorities,” Panuccio continued.
Targeting DEI
The removal of federal DEI programs that aimed to increase chances for disadvantaged groups has been one of the most noticeable features of Trump’s first week in office.
As part of a strategy to discourage DEI programs or principles that amount to unlawful discrimination or preferences, Trump signed an executive order last week that abolished the initiatives and instructed the attorney general and agency heads to identify private-sector targets that the Civil Rights Division could sue.
Edward Blum, who has filed litigation for years claiming affirmative action programs are unfair, is one person who is keen to see DEI practices eliminated. His 2023 triumph before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Harvard case, which prohibited the use of racial admissions practices in higher education, marked the pinnacle of his legal effort.
Since then, in an effort to halt racial discrimination in DEI practices, Blum and his group, the American Alliance for Equal Rights, have filed fresh lawsuits against private corporations.
According to Blum, the US Department of Justice is invited to express support for the colorblind legal covenant that unites us as a multiracial country on behalf of the American Alliance for Equal Rights.
Rolling back LGBTQ protections
Trump started reversing LGBTQ rights last week, and the Justice Department is poised to provide new instructions on transgender students and workers. Last week, he assigned the department to rectify the Biden administration’s mishandling of the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision, which determined that discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal under federal law.
According to Roger Severino, a vice president of the conservative Heritage Foundation and a former career lawyer in the Civil Rights Division for seven years, the term “gender” has been appropriated to signify something that is imbued with total ideology. It has caused confusion, and since we are interacting with actual people, we require clarification.
When the Biden administration unveiled new Title IX regulations on safeguards for LGBTQ students, it relied heavily on the 2020 verdict. However, conservatives reacted negatively, claiming that the regulations could put female athletes in risk and permit transgender athletes to participate in girls’ sports.
In a 2024 television interview, Dhillon stated that Title IX was intended by Congress to safeguard women’s rights in sports and equal treatment in our educational institutions, not the rights of men posing as women.
In the meanwhile, the Civil Rights Division has the authority to veer off course in a number of transgender rights issues that the Biden administration has prioritized, such as a statement of interest submitted in opposition to a West Virginia legislation that forbids transgender athletes from playing women’s and girls’ sports. The Supreme Court is currently considering the state’s motion for review.
According to Jim Campbell, general counsel of the conservative legal organization Alliance for Defending Freedom, it would convey the idea that the Trump administration is worried about women’s sports.
Inaction on voting rights
The Civil Rights Division helps defend the right to vote, a topic that has gained increased controversy when Trump said that undocumented immigrants are voting unlawfully for Democrats and that the 2020 election was rigged.
The Civil Rights Division and immigrant rights groups filed a lawsuit against Virginia in the lead-up to the general election of 2024, claiming the state was violating the National Voter Registration Act by unlawfully purging its voter records within 90 days of an election.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed a federal judge’s decision to stop the purges, allowing them to go ahead until Election Day. Days before attorneys from the Civil Rights Division were scheduled to appear in court to defend their position, the Justice Department withdrew from the case on Tuesday evening. The case is still pending.
We’re let down, Speaking about the action was Brent Ferguson, a lawyer for the Campaign Legal Center who represented the immigrant rights organizations in the case.
Having the DOJ drop out of a case like this is problematic because it indicates that the government is less inclined to uphold our voting rules, Ferguson said, who represents the United States and the American people.
Other claims involving discriminatory violations of the Voting Rights Act against different states are still pending before the Civil Rights Division. The Justice Department should change its strategy and drop the ongoing prosecutions, according to Hans Von Spakovsky, who served as the assistant attorney general for civil rights’ counsel from 2001 to 2005.
Von Spakovsky stated, “They should examine those cases and, given the evidence we currently have that turnout was unaffected, dismiss them and refrain from litigating what I consider to be abusive cases.”
Backing abortion-rights opponents
Von Spakovsky and other former Justice Department officials stated that the incoming administration can decide whether continuing cases in which opponents of abortion rights were charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act have substance.
Von Spakovsky claimed that during the Biden administration, a number of opponents of abortion rights were accused of violating the 1994 statute, which protects access to churches, crisis pregnancy centers, reproductive health clinics, and places of worship.
Since 2020, federal court records monitored by NBC News show that anti-abortion-rights defendants have been involved in at least a dozen cases. Nearly two dozen opponents of abortion rights, some of whom participated in a recent blockage of a reproductive health facility in Washington, D.C., were pardoned by Trump last week.
Two civil proceedings against defendants accused of blocking access to reproductive health facilities in Florida and Pennsylvania were dismissed by the Civil Rights Division as of Monday.
Von Spakovsky hailed the arrival of Dhillon.
According to him, the most crucial element in placing someone in that role is finding someone who genuinely upholds the rule of law. Harmeet Dhillon is a warrior who has been vocal in her opposition to all forms of discrimination.