DOJ’s Dhillon Widens Civil Rights Footprint in Education Deal

The Justice Department’s top civil rights enforcer can extend the anti-DEI approach she’s championed under President Donald Trump as the Education Department offloads key responsibilities.

An interagency agreement announced June 16 gives DOJ’s Civil Rights Division authority to handle complaints of discrimination based on race, sex, and other markers in schools that the Education Department would typically resolve on its own.

While the announcement described the agreement as a “partnership,” DOJ Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon said her unit will be “taking over the legal investigative functions” of Education’s civil rights enforcement.

“Now we’ve cut out the middleman, which is the Department of Education investigators and lawyers,” Dhillon said in an interview shared on X Wednesday. “They have the ultimate authority at the end of the day by statute, but 99% of the work is going to be done here.”

Dhillon, a former Republican Party official and campaign lawyer for the president, has reoriented the Civil Rights Division to focus on rooting out diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in schools and other federal funding recipients.

Dhillon’s willingness to advance DOJ investigations and lawsuits that promote Trump’s political priorities shows she could use the partnership to further sway how federal laws are enforced at educational institutions, former government attorneys said.

Under Dhillon, we can expect an even more “aggressive, proactive” approach to civil rights enforcement in the nation’s schools—one that stokes the fear of ending up in court, said Kenneth Marcus, who led the Education Department’s civil rights office under the first Trump administration.

The partnership is among more than 10 agreements ceding Education responsibilities to other agencies as Trump aims to shutter the department.

But the Civil Rights Division’s capacity to handle new responsibilities could prove limited after losing at least 75% of career attorneys, former division attorneys said. The announcement reinforces concerns among those who’ve left DOJ regarding Dhillon’s abandonment of past work examining systemic discrimination facing minority communities.

Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said the departments “are leveraging the expertise and capacities of both agencies,” and Education Department spokesperson Amelia Joy said the approach will lead to “more efficient and productive civil rights enforcement.”

DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has hired 81 new lawyers under Trump’s second term, including 25 in the educational opportunities section, Baldassarre said.

Dhillon’s Leadership

The interagency agreement will accelerate Trump’s goal of dismantling the Education Department and “consolidate enforcement power within the Department of Justice,” said Shaheena Simons, who led the Civil Rights Division’s educational opportunities section from the end of the Obama administration until last year.

Dhillon has cemented herself as the face of Trump’s unprecedented interpretation of civil rights enforcement, ramping up DOJ’s actions against universities over DEI programs and other practices she says unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race.

She recently sent letters to medical schools accusing them of using socioeconomic variables as “proxies” for race in admissions and has filed lawsuits against universities over alleged antisemitism during pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses.

Dhillon’s approach aligns with the work of Education’s civil rights unit under Kimberly Richey’s leadership. That office has launched dozens of investigations targeting transgender accommodations in schools, along with alleged antisemitism and race-based discrimination against White and Asian students.

Meanwhile, it resolved no cases alleging sexual harassment, sexual violence, seclusion or restraint, racial harassment, or discriminatory school discipline in 2025, according to a report from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Only a fraction of matters that come through Education typically make their way to DOJ. The new dynamic could mean more administrative complaints lead to DOJ lawsuits, Marcus said.

But some former Education civil rights attorneys worry that Dhillon’s pursuit of cases in line with the president’s political priorities may leave other students’ claims to languish, such as disparate-impact discipline and restraint and seclusion complaints.

“My concern is that the bulk of what the complaints look like that come into OCR that are not sexy issues, that are not spicy issues, are just going to sit somewhere,” said Nancy Potter, a former civil rights lawyer at the Education Department.

Education’s civil rights office has eliminated certain Biden-era settlement agreements with colleges and school districts aimed at protecting transgender students’ rights. Dhillon could revoke more, given her moves to ax reform agreements with local law enforcement agencies, Potter said.

Logistical Hurdles

The civil rights units at both departments have traditionally played different roles in civil rights enforcement, prompting questions about the transfer of responsibilities.

“The Civil Rights Division has litigators who go to court and enforce the law, but they don’t process and adjudicate complaints filed by the public,” said Mikael Rojas, a former Biden-era political appointee at the Civil Rights Division.

Education’s civil rights office is required by law to review every complaint it receives from the public, while DOJ has wide discretion in selecting cases.

It’s unclear how DOJ and Education will allocate resources, staff, and workloads — details senior Education officials say will be worked out over the coming weeks.

Education will refer complaints it receives to DOJ, according to the agreement. Senior officials told reporters that Education would maintain its statutory and regulatory responsibilities, including making the final determination on investigations based on DOJ’s findings and proposals.

Education’s civil rights office will continue facilitating mediations and negotiations on settlements for matters it refers to DOJ but can also defer to the latter department on those, according to the agreement.

DOJ’s civil rights unit will likely be strained by new cases, said Simons, who oversaw roughly 40 attorneys in the educational opportunities section.

Despite DOJ’s new hires, each career manager in the section at the start of Trump’s second term has since left, and less than a handful of the section’s career attorneys stayed, Simons said. That’s compared to the roughly 300 staff members who remain at Education’s civil rights office after a series of firings and office closures in 2025.

“It is truly hard to understand how this would work,” Simons said.