Harmeet Dhillon resigned Thursday, Nov. 5, as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on X, two days after midterm elections in which Democrats won control of the House and Senate, according to Associated Press results. “Today, I accepted the resignation of Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Civil Rights Division with conviction the past 18 months,” Blanche wrote.
Her resignation letter to President Donald Trump cited lawsuits over transgender participation in women’s sports and over schools’ treatment of transgender students, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “This is just a small sample of what we’ve accomplished in the Civil Rights Division over the past year and-a-half,” Dhillon wrote.
She followed with a post of her own on X. “We ushered in the downfall of illegal DEI, we fought to protect women and girls’ sports, and so much more,” Dhillon wrote.
Dhillon’s division sued school systems in Kansas City, Kansas, and Anne Arundel County, Maryland, in September and October over how they handle trans students’ names and pronouns. “She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor,” Blanche wrote.
Harmeet Dhillon Resigns, Says Susie Wiles Asked Her to Wait
Dhillon told Fox News Digital the timing came from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. “I wasn’t asked to resign,” Dhillon said. “I resigned three weeks ago, and Susie asked me to please wait until after the midterms.”
A day later, Wiles was out herself: Trump said Friday that Stephen Miller is replacing her as chief of staff, the AP reported. “Looking forward to continuing our work with my good friend Stephen Miller as Chief,” Blanche posted Friday.
Bloomberg Law first reported her plans Thursday morning, citing four people familiar with them. “My decision, my choice,” Dhillon told Fox. “It’s time.”
Dhillon has called the exodus of her division’s staff the “biggest single personnel self-purge in DOJ history,” The Associated Press reported. “Harmeet Dhillon has been the most destructive, lawless, and hateful head of the Civil Rights Division in DOJ history,” said Stacey Young, a former division attorney who founded Justice Connection, a group of department alumni, according to The Independent.
Her Kansas City and Anne Arundel Suits Over Student Pronouns
The Education Department brought in the Justice Department in June after a privacy probe of Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools, a fight Gayety covered in July. Dhillon said then that her department “will pursue all available avenues to force Kansas City’s compliance with federal law,” in a joint announcement.
On Sept. 1, the division filed what the department called a “first-of-its-kind lawsuit” against the district under two federal student privacy laws, FERPA and PPRA. “And the point I wanted to emphasize is that it’s the first of many,” Dhillon told Fox News that day.
A district spokesperson said the district is “in full compliance with FERPA and PPRA,” KCUR reported.
Eight weeks later, on Oct. 27, the division sued the Board of Education of Anne Arundel County over a policy that, the suit says, has staff use students’ chosen names and pronouns without telling parents. “This Department will end illegal school policies that keep parents in the dark,” Dhillon said, CBS News Baltimore reported.
The United States, not Dhillon, is the plaintiff in both cases, court papers in Kansas and Maryland show. A clerk gave the Kansas City district until Nov. 16 to answer, and the Anne Arundel board’s answer is due Dec. 28, according to the Kansas and Maryland dockets. “AACPS disagrees with the allegations and stands by its compliance with FERPA and PPRA,” an Anne Arundel County Public Schools spokesperson said, according to CBS.
California Trans Athlete Suit Tossed, Maine Case Still Open
Her division sued California’s Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation under Title IX in July 2025. “Title IX was enacted over half a century ago to protect women and girls from discrimination,” Dhillon said in the department’s announcement.
U.S. District Judge Cynthia Valenzuela dismissed that case with prejudice, the Deseret News reported in September. She wrote that the only question before her was “whether Title IX and its implementing regulations clearly required California to exclude transgender girls from girls’ teams and sex-separated facilities,” and she found “they did not,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
“We are disappointed by the Court’s order,” a Justice Department spokesperson said then, adding that the agency was “evaluating our options for appeal.” The department still hadn’t appealed the Aug. 31 ruling as of Oct. 9, Education Week reported.
The department’s April 2025 Title IX suit against Maine’s Department of Education over the state’s trans athlete policy is still open in federal court, according to the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. “The state of Maine is discriminating against women by failing to protect women in women’s sports, pretty basic stuff,” then-Attorney General Pam Bondi said when she announced it, Maine Morning Star reported.
“This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed,” Gov. Janet Mills said at the time. (Maine voters may get their own say, with a trans sports ban petition eyeing the 2027 ballot.)
Who Runs the Civil Rights Division After Dhillon?
No acting head had been named by Friday afternoon, when the division’s leadership page still listed Dhillon, and a permanent successor needs Trump’s nomination and Senate confirmation. “Her departure is welcome, if overdue,” Sharon McGowan, the Human Rights Campaign’s senior vice president for policy and litigation, said in a statement. “But it doesn’t automatically undo the damage. The new Congress must use its oversight power to find out what was lost and restore the division’s true mission.”
Democrats take over both chambers in January, and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin is in line to chair the House Judiciary Committee, PolitiFact reported. “We now have hundreds of cases in which federal judges have excoriated the Department of Justice for lying in court and for disobeying court orders,” Raskin told Bloomberg Government, according to The Center Square.
Asked by Fox News Digital whether she’d testify if Congress subpoenaed her after she leaves, Dhillon said executive privilege would limit what she could discuss. “I would certainly take legal counsel and follow it in that regard,” she said.
“We changed it, and that’s what we came here to do,” Dhillon told Fox of her time running the division. “And it’s done.”
