Harmeet Dhillon resigns as head of DOJ civil rights after 18 months

Harmeet Dhillon has resigned as head of the US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. She announced it on X on Thursday, 5 November, calling the job “the honor of a lifetime”, and Attorney General Todd Blanche accepted, praising her for leading the division “with conviction” for the past 18 months.

She is the first senior Justice Department official to leave after Democrats won both houses of Congress this week, though she had told allies earlier that she planned to go after the midterms.

Who is Harmeet Dhillon?

Dhillon is a California lawyer and Republican activist who founded the Dhillon Law Group, now run by her brother. Born in India to a Sikh family and raised in North Carolina, she became one of the most prominent South Asian Republicans in the country and was confirmed by the Senate in April 2025 to run the division that enforces US civil rights laws.

What she changed

Under Dhillon, the division shifted its focus. It put religious liberty at the centre of its work and created a new section dealing with Second Amendment (gun) rights. Many career lawyers left in the first months of her tenure; she recruited dozens of new attorneys to replace them.

Why her exit is being searched in Pakistan

Dhillon’s name was among the top searches in Pakistan on Friday. Her resignation is part of a wider shake-up in Washington after the midterms. A day later Trump replaced his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, with Stephen Miller.

No successor has been named. The next head of the division will need Senate confirmation, and from January that Senate will be controlled by Democrats, which could leave the post with an acting chief for months.