The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division—the very agency created to protect Black Americans and other minorities from discrimination—is now pivoting to protect White people from what the Trump administration calls “reverse discrimination.”
That’s the assessment of several former Justice Department employees who spoke with CBS News, who say the department is undergoing a dramatic shift that upends 60 years of federal civil rights enforcement.
WHAT’S GOING ON
President Trump said the quiet part loud earlier this month in a New York Times interview: “I think that a lot of people were very badly treated. White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university or a college.”
The administration is backing up that rhetoric with action. The Justice Department sent a letter to Rhode Island officials investigating whether the state’s affirmative action hiring plan constitutes discrimination. Last week, the DOJ sued Minnesota to dismantle its affirmative action policies for state agencies, claiming they violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“We’re seeing a Civil Rights Division that’s really acting on the president’s notion that civil rights laws have harmed White people,” said Jen Swedish, a former attorney in the division.
THE DETAILS
A Justice Department spokesperson didn’t shy away from the new mission, calling diversity programs “DEI insanity” in a statement to CBS News. “The Civil Rights Division has dozens of active investigations into potentially unlawful discrimination adopted under the guise of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the spokesperson said. “When we identify violations of federal law, we will not shy away from taking action.”
In December, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon eliminated disparate-impact liability from Title VI regulations—a legal tool used to challenge policies that harm minority groups even without proven discriminatory intent. Dhillon accused the department of historically “enforcing race- or sex-based quotas” and said the change would “restore true equality under the law.”
BUT BUT BUT
Swedish and other former employees say federal law has always prohibited discrimination against any group, including White people. What’s happening now, they argue, is a political choice to target diversity programs specifically.
“We are right now operating under a backdrop of a Department of Justice that’s no longer independent from the White House,” Swedish said. She now works for Justice Connection, an organization supporting the more than 5,000 DOJ employees who have departed in the first year of Trump’s second term.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson didn’t mince words: “The president has taken on the effort to mislead the American public and distort the truth and history. His statement is patently false. This is beyond dog-whistle politics when they are playing to the lowest common denominator… building to white supremacy.”
WHY IT MATTERS
The mass exodus from the Civil Rights Division isn’t just about headcount—it’s about expertise. “Those losses translate in hundreds or thousands of years of experience,” Swedish said. “These are people who have dedicated their entire lives to enforcing civil rights laws.”
Baltimore activist John Wesley, who previously investigated housing discrimination for Maryland agencies, warned that gutting these protections will hurt everyone. “Economically impaired people come in all colors,” he said. “If we change the protections or reduce them, we will hurt all people.”
The Civil Rights Division was built to dismantle systems of racial oppression. Now it’s being retooled to protect the majority from the modest efforts made to level a playing field that was never level to begin with.