The U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division — established in 1957 to dismantle Jim Crow laws — has been quietly rebuilt with a nearly all-white corps of attorneys, according to a new report by Public Citizen that names the new hires and details their backgrounds.

For nearly seven decades, the division enforced voting rights, fair housing laws, and police accountability measures. After President Donald Trump took office, roughly 75 percent of the division's attorneys were forced out, according to Public Citizen. A total of 368 employees departed the division, according to a Senate memo citing a Justice Department disclosure.

On the division's 68th anniversary last December, more than 200 former employees signed an open letter accusing the Trump administration of gutting the division. "But after witnessing this Administration destroy much of our work, we made the heartbreaking decision to leave — along with hundreds of colleagues, including about 75 percent of attorneys. Now, we must sound the alarm about the near destruction of DOJ's once-revered crown jewel," the letter stated, as reported by Al Jazeera.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon swore in more than 100 new attorneys on July 8 without naming any of them publicly, according to Public Citizen. Dhillon posted group photos on X along with two portraits of herself presiding over the ceremony.

"[T]hese civil rights warriors will enforce our nation's laws to benefit ALL Americans, not just a select few," Dhillon wrote on X.

Before joining the Justice Department, Dhillon's law firm represented President Trump, Tucker Carlson, and a Google engineer terminated for authoring a memo opposing company diversity programs.

Weeks after her confirmation, the division dismantled consent decrees reached following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and closed investigations into six additional police departments. Those consent decrees — court-enforceable agreements requiring departments to adopt federal oversight and reform — were among the primary tools the division used to address patterns of unconstitutional policing.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jesus Osete, Dhillon's top deputy, marked the swearing-in ceremony by posting a parable on X. "I am building a Cathedral," Osete wrote, quoting a story about stonemasons.

Osete also attended meetings beginning in fall 2025 involving lawyers Trump tasked with reinvestigating his 2020 election loss. Those meetings preceded the FBI's seizure of approximately 700 boxes of election records from Fulton County, Georgia, in January 2026, according to Public Citizen.

Public Citizen identified at least five of 11 new attorneys with documented records of misconduct, controversy, or irregular hiring.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Morrison, a career Justice Department attorney, attempted to block his own colleagues from forming a union after Trump's 2024 election victory and was subsequently promoted.

Acting voting section chief Eric Neff came from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, where he charged an election-software CEO based on a tip from an election-conspiracy group. The charges were dropped within weeks, with prosecutors citing potential bias. Los Angeles County paid $5 million to settle the resulting civil-rights lawsuit and publicly declared the CEO innocent.

Acting Second Amendment Section chief Barry Arrington previously represented Sidney Powell in a defamation suit related to 2020 election conspiracy theories and helped a Colorado charter school prevent its valedictorian from coming out as gay during a graduation speech. The Second Amendment Section itself is a newly created unit within the division, representing a structural expansion of its portfolio beyond the voting rights, housing, employment, and policing mandates that defined its work for decades.

Senior counsel Daniel Flickinger was forced to resign from a Birmingham, Alabama, law firm in 2020 following a Facebook post about George Floyd's death. "Things I think about: If I were a seven-time felon, with my most recent prison stint stemming from robbing and holding a pregnant woman at gunpoint in her home, would I choose to die in a fentanyl and methamphetamine numbed strangulation if it meant being worshipped in a nationwide funeral and my family receiving millions of dollars? Purely hypothetical," the post read, according to an Alabama Supreme Court opinion. Flickinger now helps oversee the federal office responsible for policing civil-rights compliance on college campuses.

Attorney Greta Gieseke was hired with just 11 months of non-clerkship legal experience and immediately detailed to Dhillon's office, bypassing an internal policy requiring three years of service before such a transfer, according to Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT).

Human Rights Watch released its own report on the division, separately documenting the changes. The organization found that journalists and civil rights lawyers have described the situation as the most severe rollback of federal civil rights enforcement since Reconstruction — the post-Civil War period when federal troops were withdrawn from the South, ending the first era of federal civil-rights protection.

"The Trump administration is targeting efforts to address discrimination without offering any alternatives," said Trey Walk, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Sen. Welch, in a letter to Dhillon, wrote: "[Y]ou have, in your own words, 'cleaned house.'"