“When I started, it had about 400 attorneys in it, and when we came in and told the lawyers here that we were going to be implementing the president’s executive orders and prioritizing getting rid of DEI and cleaning up voter rolls and, you know, doing some of these important things that the American people voted for, eventually about 300 of those attorneys quit. And so they self-deported.”
Independent reporting indicates the exodus has indeed been enormous.
Bloomberg Law reported in September that more than 300 lawyers had left a division that previously employed more than 400 attorneys during the preceding 19 months. The outlet reported that the smaller division has simultaneously shifted toward priorities including voter-roll litigation, alleged anti-Christian discrimination and gun-rights issues. Critics, including former Civil Rights Division attorneys, argue that the overhaul has weakened traditional federal civil-rights enforcement.
Dhillon sees the transformation very differently.
Rather than attempting to preserve the previous staffing structure, she has embarked on a recruitment drive to bring new lawyers and other legal professionals into the division.
“We then had the task of, while we had DOJ restrictions and budgetary constraints, building back the Civil Rights Division,” Dhillon said. “And I’m really happy to say that I recruited over 100 great legal professionals here to the DOJ.”
DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels separately told Bloomberg Law that the department was grateful for the roughly 100 lawyers and staff who had joined the division and intended to recruit approximately 100 more. Bloomberg reported that the division was hiring roughly five to 10 lawyers per month.
The overhaul represents far more than a personnel change.
It amounts to a major redirection of one of the Justice Department’s most consequential divisions.
The Civil Rights Division was established in 1957 and historically has handled federal enforcement involving voting rights, discrimination, disability rights and other constitutional and statutory protections. Under Trump and Dhillon, the division has retained that broad legal framework while substantially changing which disputes receive heightened attention.
That includes challenges to race-conscious policies and DEI programs.
It also includes election-related litigation and efforts to obtain voter-registration information from states, as well as cases involving religious discrimination and alleged antisemitism.
Dhillon described the new approach as enforcing civil-rights statutes consistently rather than reserving their protections for particular groups.
“We have revitalized our efforts. We have, you know, worked as a single unit with great zeal and dedication to do exactly what I promised in my first week on the job, which is implement those executive orders within the statutory framework of all of our great civil rights laws, which I love and respect.”
The staffing upheaval did not occur without controversy.
Former division lawyers and outside civil-rights organizations have argued that the Trump administration is moving the office away from its longstanding emphasis on protecting historically disadvantaged groups. One former DOJ official quoted by Bloomberg Law characterized the new personnel as a “demolition crew,” while the Justice Department maintains that the division remains committed to protecting the civil rights of all Americans.
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Earlier reporting also showed that the departures occurred through several different mechanisms, including resignations, deferred-resignation offers and personnel reassignments. By August 2025, Bloomberg Law reported that roughly three-quarters of the division’s career lawyers had already left.
Dhillon, however, has turned that extraordinary turnover into part of her message about remaking the department.
The division is now pursuing cases involving voter rolls, university admissions and discrimination policies, religious liberty and other areas that received different levels of emphasis under previous administrations.
Her description of the departing lawyers was unmistakable.
They “self-deported.”
And the lawyers replacing them are entering a Civil Rights Division whose leadership has made clear that the mission — and the cases it prioritizes — will look markedly different from the one they inherited.
