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The new head of the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, was on the Glenn Beck podcast over the weekend. That, in and of itself, is enough to raise the hairs on the back of the neck of anyone who understands the Justice Department’s non-political mission. Dhillion said in the interview that as many as 100 lawyers in the division have left the department since she began redefining how civil rights laws will be enforced during her tenure, which is more like, they won’t be enforced unless you’re white, Christian, or anti-abortion.

This is how Beck’s podcast describes the episode: “Is there really a ‘bloodbath’ in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice? Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the DOJ, joins Glenn to discuss firebombing at Christian churches, ‘violence’ against free speech, and the fate of the innocent people persecuted under the Biden administration. Harmeet reveals how the FACE Act doesn’t just protect abortion centers but pro-life pregnancy centers as well, says it’s time for violent activists to be prosecuted, and explains why ‘you don’t have to sue everybody.’ Then, she and Glenn break down anti-Semitism on college campuses, her focus on the Second Amendment, and her advice to Congress to prevent a repeat of COVID-19 government tyranny.”

So, pretty much the typical mission for the crown jewel of the Justice Department, the lawyers who take on the mission of protecting civil rights for the most marginalized people in our society. Gandhi said that “A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” Others have picked up that refrain, noting that we should be judged by how we treat those who are easiest to ignore, people who are poor, homeless, incarcerated, ill, and so on. That’s what the Civil Rights Division does. It ensures that police don’t stomp on the rights of people who lack the power to respond. It keeps landlords from discriminating against minorities. It ensures we are all able to exercise our right to vote. But apparently, that’s not how it’s going to work under the Trump administration.

When Beck asked Dhillon about the “bloodbath” allegations, she responded that she had told Civil Rights Division employees that “These are the president’s priorities, this is what we will be focusing on, govern yourself accordingly.” She claimed that after she explained that the traditional priorities were done, “dozens and now over 100 attorneys decided that they’re rather not do what their job requires them to do, and I think that’s fine. Because we don’t want people in the federal government who feel like it’s their pet project to go persecute police departments based on statistical evidence or persecute people praying outside abortion facilities instead of doing violence. That’s not the job here—the job here is to enforce the federal civil rights law, not woke ideology.”

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