The Justice Department is asking its civil rights lawyers to temporarily join the Trump administration’s “priority work” of fighting antisemitism at universities and discrimination in college admissions.
The department’s Civil Rights Division, which enforces antidiscrimination laws, is looking for up to five lawyers from other parts of the division to join the educational opportunities section on a four-month detail, according to a recent internal posting viewed by Bloomberg Law.
This section “has a surge staffing need to address Administration priority work in combating antisemitism in schools, Title IX, and discriminatory college admissions practices,” the memo says. Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.
The openings are available to all Civil Rights Division lawyers in civil sections, and interested volunteers were asked to submit their information by April 9.
The volunteer request is part of the Justice Department’s shift in priorities to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses and transgender athletes.
The Justice and Education Departments jointly announced on Friday a “Title IX Special Investigations Team” that would “protect students, and especially female athletes, from the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities.” The team would include civil rights division attorneys, according to the departments.
The Justice Department has also launched an investigation into whether the University of California system has an antisemitic hostile work environment on its campuses, and the Education Department has sent warning letters to dozens of schools about protecting Jewish students on campuses.
Those initiatives follow President Donald Trump’s executive orders to combat antisemitism and to withhold federal funds from educational institutions that allow transgender women to participate in women’s sports.
Meanwhile, the department has dismissed civil rights cases it brought under the Biden administration, including suits challenging hiring practices of police and fire departments as racially discriminatory and one civil suit alleging sexual abuse of migrant children by a government contractor.
Career Departures
The staffing request comes amid a leadership shakeup within the Civil Rights Division and its education section. Harmeet Dhillon, one of Trump’s personal attorneys, was confirmed April 3 to lead the unit. Dhillon is known for arguing conservative positions in cases involving religious liberty, treatment for transgender minors, and censorship on college campuses.
Several career leaders within the division are also leaving. Shaheena Simons, section chief of the educational opportunities section, resigned on Friday, while acting appellate section chief Sydney Foster and her acting deputy, Elizabeth Hecker, are resigning on April 11, according to an email from Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Mac Warner that was obtained by Bloomberg Law.
Simons, who had spent nearly two decades at the Civil Rights Division, announced her departure in a LinkedIn post on Monday in which she also implied that recent changes at the division prompted her to leave.
“I was proud to serve the American people as part of an institution that protected the most vulnerable, that followed the facts and the law, that guarded its credibility, and that valued the excellence of its career workforce. It is hard to believe how much has changed, how quickly,” Simons wrote.
Warner also announced two new additions to Dhillon’s office: Andrew Darlington, who was most recently director of Florida’s office of election crimes and security, and attorney Gregory Brown, whose Charlottesville-based firm has represented students suing the University of Virginia for discrimination.
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story: