Skip to main content
Hemlock Collective Logo Hemlock Collective
Rule of law

The Inversion of the Civil Rights Division

Active repurposing
Case Dossier FED-CIV-002
STATUS
Active repurposing
SEVERITY
Critical
DATE
2025-05-19
DOMAIN
Rule of Law
SUBDOMAIN
Civil Rights
CAPTURE VECTOR
Institutional inversion
TAGS
doj civil-rights purge harmeet-dhillon mission-inversion anti-woke
Back to Case Files
Following the appointment of Harmeet Dhillon, 70% of DOJ Civil Rights Division attorneys have resigned or been forced out. The division's mission has been radically inverted to enforce 'anti-woke' executive orders, dropping traditional discrimination cases to focus on 'anti-Christian bias' and 'gender ideology extremism.'

Summary

By May 2025, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division—created to combat segregation—had lost 250 attorneys (70% of its staff) in a mass exodus precipitated by the new administration’s radical reshaping of its mandate. Under the leadership of Harmeet Dhillon, the division has dropped investigations into voting rights and racial discrimination. Instead, it has been redirected to enforce new executive orders focused on “ending radical indoctrination in schools” and “defending women from gender ideology extremism.”

Capture Mechanism: “Turning the Train Around”

This case represents the total inversion of a federal agency’s purpose.

  • The Doctrine: Dhillon explicitly rejected the traditional conservative approach of merely slowing federal enforcement. Instead, she vowed to “turn the train around and drive it in the opposite direction,” stating: “We don’t just slow down the woke. We take up the cause to achieve the executive branch’s goals.”
  • The New Mandate: Dhillon issued new mission statements for the division’s 11 sections, including:
    • “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation”
    • “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”
    • “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias”
  • The Purge: The administration utilized reassignment of managers and forced participation in ideologically driven task forces to induce resignations, clearing the way for loyalist replacements.

Analysis

The Civil Rights Division has been weaponized against the very populations it was designed to protect. By redefining “civil rights” enforcement as the protection of the majority against “woke” minorities, the administration has successfully hollowed out the institution’s expertise and reversed its trajectory. As one former official noted, “The division right now is being decimated… enforcing laws only with respect to favored communities.”