By Sarah N. Lynch and Dan Levine
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department is reassigning about a dozen senior career attorneys from its civil rights unit, four people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, as President Donald Trump’s administration steers the division away from its historic priorities.
At least three senior career attorneys — nonpolitical employees who typically remain in their jobs from administration to administration — who managed offices that investigated abuse by police and handled violations of voting and disability rights, have been ordered to take other assignments, said three of the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss moves that had not been made public.
The changes are part of a wave of reassignments and resignations affecting at least another nine attorneys, including people who worked on probes of employment or educational discrimination, abuses inside correctional facilities, and voting rights cases, the people said.
Founded in 1957 following the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the division initially focused on protecting the voting rights of Black Americans. Over the decades that followed, Congress expanded its responsibilities to include protecting Americans from discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, sex, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and military status.
The changes are part of a shakeup by Trump’s pick to lead the Civil Rights Division, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. The division has paused probes of alleged police abuse, launched its first investigation into whether Los Angeles violated gun rights laws, and following Trump’s lead, changed the department’s stance on transgender rights and probed alleged antisemitism at U.S. colleges involving pro-Palestinian protesters.
“When I assumed my duties as Assistant Attorney General, I learned that certain sections in Civil Rights had substantial existing caseloads and backlogs, and that formed the basis of temporary details to assist those sections in getting, and staying, caught up,” Dhillon said in a statement to Reuters.
Division employees are also being urged to take advantage of a new wave of deferred resignation offers that were rolled out early last week, according to two people familiar with the matter and internal memos seen by Reuters.
Dhillon said the deferred resignation options are being offered throughout the government and provide a “unique, generous, and voluntary opportunity” for people to pursue their passions elsewhere. She declined to comment on the specific numbers of staff affected by the changes.
The reassignments for the senior attorneys include handling public records requests or adjudicating internal discrimination complaints, the people said.
In emails sent late last week, Dhillon gave each section in the Civil Rights Division a new “mission statement” that she told employees would “define our expectations going forward.”
The Educational Opportunities Section, for example, was told that part of its mandate is to protect the rights of girls and women to have “unfettered access” to sports programs “that exclude males from presence or participation,” according to an email seen by Reuters.
The Immigrant and Employee Rights Section was told it should investigate companies that “unlawfully discriminate against U.S. workers in favor of foreign visa workers.”
“They are going to eliminate the Civil Rights Division as it was built to exist,” one former department employee familiar with the changes told Reuters. “The only purpose now will be to victimize the very people it was created to protect.”
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Scott Malone and Leslie Adler)