Barbara McQuade, Columnist

The DOJ’s ‘Crown Jewel’ Has Been Tarnished

Many top Civil Rights Division lawyers are choosing to flee rather than carry out the Trump administration’s new mission.

April 30, 2025 at 12:30 PM UTC

By Barbara McQuade

Barbara McQuade is a professor at the University of Michigan Law school, a former US attorney and author of "Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America."

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon is unconcerned about fleeing staff. — Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon is unconcerned about fleeing staff.
Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg

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The Civil Rights Division has been called the crown jewel of the US Department of Justice. However, many of its top lawyers are fleeing their once coveted jobs as the Trump administration recasts the division’s mission to attack the very interests it once protected.

Harmeet K. Dhillon, the new assistant attorney general who heads the division, confirmed in a weekend interview that more than 100 of its lawyers have left rather than work on cases targeting transgender athletes, diversity initiatives and “woke ideology.” In January, the division employed 380 lawyers, and the exodus may not be over.