An Open Letter from Former Civil Rights Division Employees

Sixty-eight years ago, on December 9, 1957, Attorney General William P. Rogers established the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, following the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. For nearly seven decades, the Division has worked to uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all people in the United States. The Division’s mission is to enforce federal laws prohibiting discrimination in key areas of our lives: work, housing, school, public spaces, at the ballot box, and in the criminal and juvenile justice systems.

From 2009 until this past May, I worked as an attorney in the Division enforcing laws that banned unlawful discrimination in the workplace. Although the four presidential administrations under which I served had their own priorities, they never prevented me from doing good work.

This administration is different. Almost immediately, it became clear that President Trump and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon intended to destroy the Division’s longstanding mission and drive out the dedicated employees who carried it out.

Today, I add my name to the letter below, along with 200 of my former colleagues – all of whom resigned because of this administration’s decision to largely stop enforcing our nation’s civil rights laws faithfully and fairly. In the letter, we explain what this administration has done to the Division’s work and how a diminished Civil Rights Division harms the American people, whose rights the Division was created 68 years ago to protect.

Read the full open letter here: https://www.thejusticeconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Civil-Rights-Division-Sign-On-Letter.pdf

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