Ryan Bort
2026-01-23 15:00:00
The Civil Right Division of the Department of Justice was created in 1957 to act as the federal government’s independent investigative and enforcement mechanism for civil rights law in the United States. The office oversaw landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education, the enforcement of voting rights for Black Americans in the desegregated South, and the investigation into the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.
The division may have investigated Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in 2020, but in the wake of Renee Good’s killing there earlier this month, it is now more concerned with those protesting ICE’s brutal, ostensibly unconstitutional conduct in the city. The Civil Rights Division’s new mission is the direct result of Donald Trump retaking office, after which it cut staff and reoriented itself to focus less on the rights of the underrepresented, and more on the president’s retribution agenda, the exclusion of transgender athletes from sports, and supposed slights against white, Christian Americans.
Upon his reelection, Trump nominated attorney and former Fox News talking head Harmeet Dhillon to serve as assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division. Dhillon, who worked as a legal adviser for Trump’s 2020 campaign, moved quickly to purge the division of senior officials and dismiss a slew of ongoing cases — many focused on police brutality and law enforcement misconduct. In a series of memos, Dhillon outlined that the division would be shifting its priorities to “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports” and “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.”
It was “really hard to write transition memos feeling like they were just going to go in the trash,” a former employee of the Civil Rights Division tells Rolling Stone. The former employee, who was granted anonymity to speak more freely about their experience, described the frenetic shuffling of staffers between departments and agencies amid the administration’s early DOGE cuts and mass firings.
“I think of the people that I worked with who filed complaints [to the DOJ] and were looking for help from the U.S. government, and just kind of completely disappeared on them,” they say. “It’s particularly impactful when [it’s] the U.S. government. When you’re a person facing discrimination, and you’ll go anywhere for help, and somebody actually answers, and then all of a sudden you never hear from them again.”
Many of the cases handled by the Civil Rights Division had been ongoing for years. Others were confidential, as the department tends to keep active investigations under wraps until they determine a finding is in the public interest. The staffer recalls that in one instance, they had been instructed to investigate a viral post on X “as if it was a complaint we’d receive from a citizen.”
Dhillon’s management of the division was thrust back into the national spotlight this month after the DOJ refused to open an investigation into the killing of Renee Good, a Minneapolis mother of three who was shot and killed in her car by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. Shortly after her murder, the Justice Department indicated that it would not launch a probe into the incident, with sources telling CBS News that the division’s criminal section was explicitly ordered not to pursue an investigation into Good’s killing — sidelining them from a case they would have typically pursued under past administrations. Instead, sources within the department told multiple outlets that the DOJ had begun investigating Good’s widow, Becca Good, on allegations of impeding a federal officer and ties to activist groups. Dhillon, a prolific social media poster, boosted unfounded claims on social media that Good was associated with “Antifa”, and statements from Trump describing Good as a “professional agitator.”
Stacey Young, founder and executive director of Justice Connection, a network of DOJ alumni, and a former senior attorney in the Civil Rights Division, tells Rolling Stone that Dhillon’s management of the division — which mirrors the administration’s affinity for bold declarations on television social media — is undermining the work of the department.
“They’re all about clicks and PR,” Young says. “You’re seeing Harmeet Dhillon not just prematurely announce investigations on social media, but threaten individuals and entities on social media.”
“To use the DOJs incredible power and influence to threaten people online,” she adds. “I mean, it’s hard for the division to maintain any kind of integrity when its leader is willing to engage in that conduct.”
Earlier this month, half a dozen Minnesota federal prosecutors resigned over the DOJ’s handling of Good’s case. The departures included Joseph H. Thompson, who had spearheaded the state’s case against a widespread network of social services fraud that has become a flashpoint in the administration’s anti-immigrant messaging.
“When you lose top leaders in offices like that, not only do you lose their own institutional knowledge and expertise, but it’s extremely destabilizing to the rest of the office,” Young explains of the mass exodus taking place throughout the Justice Department. “Some of the top folks in that U.S. Attorney’s Office, and in the Civil Rights Division — you lost almost the entire leadership structure [and] that’s going to crush morale among those who stay, and degrade the work that office will do going forward.”
As reports of ICE misconduct continue to emerge from Minnesota, — including the beating and mistreatment of detained individuals, racial profiling, and the snatching of citizens and other individuals with legal status — the focus of the DOJ is set on the actions of anti-ICE protesters.
On Sunday, Dhillon announced a DOJ investigation into a protest held at a church in the Twin Cities area. A group of activists — along with former CNN host Don Lemon, who was covering the protest — interrupted a service at the Cities Church in St. Paul. Around 40 individuals chanted and paraded around the interior of the church, where Pastor David Easterwood — acting field director of the St. Paul ICE office — preaches.
The protesters chanted “ICE out!” and “David Easterwood, out now!” They then left the church and marched to a nearby alley. Right-wing commentators were quick to label the protest an instance of domestic “terrorism,” and Dhillon appeared on conservative streamer Benny Johnson’s show and announced that the Civil Rights Division was investigating the incident as a potential hate crime, and was looking into charging protesters under the FACE Act and the KKK Act of 1871.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) is a 1994 law that prohibits the use of force or intimidation against individuals seeking abortion care, exercising their religious rights in a place of worship, as well as vandalism and destruction of reproductive clinics or places of worship. The Enforcement Act of 1871 — known as the KKK Act — prohibits certain forms of conspiracy to violate the civil rights of individuals.
“Whenever anyone conspires to violate the protected civil rights of American citizens, the Klan Act can be used to bring a conspiracy charge,” Dhillon told Johnson.
In a post on X, Dhillon directly warned Lemon that he was “on notice.”
“A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service,” she wrote.
Looking to “social media to find violations” is an “absurd way to try to enforce civil rights laws,” Young, the former Civil Rights Division attorney, tells Rolling Stone. “Going about doing the division’s work by social media is clownish.” Young adds that Dhillon’s plans to use the FACE and KKK acts against the protesters would be a “novel use” of the laws, and that given the nonviolent nature of the protest, it was not an incident that “you’d usually see in a case the Civil Rights Division would pursue.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Dhillon dismissed criticism of her management of the division as “broken record” complaints from “disgruntled former employees.”
“Under this administration, the Civil Rights Division enforces our nation’s laws to benefit ALL Americans, not just a select few. This includes fighting race and sex discrimination regardless of the victim’s race or sex, defending the Second Amendment, protecting the right to worship peacefully, and much more,” Dhillon wrote.
“And yes, the Division will continue using modern information-sharing tools such social media to identify potential violations of federal law – it’s 2026, and that’s how information is shared by Americans today. This isn’t your grandfather’s DOJ,” she added.
In effect, the administration is plowing ahead. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a social media post that “attacks against law enforcement and the intimidation of Christians are being met with the full force of federal law.If state leaders refuse to act responsibly to prevent lawlessness, this Department of Justice will remain mobilized to prosecute federal crimes and ensure that the rule of law prevails.”
Trump — long a critic of Lemon’s — amplified calls for his arrest on Truth Social, writing that participants in the protest were “troublemakers who should be thrown in jail, or thrown out of the Country.”
As of Thursday, the administration has announced the arrests of three people who participated in the protest. Despite the incident being a peaceful demonstration, members of the administration — including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel — have described it in various instances as a “riot” or an “attack” on the church. The DOJ tried to bring charges against Lemon, as well, but a federal magistrate judge rejected the move, citing First Amendment protections for Lemon in his role as a journalist.
