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leadership conference on civil and human rights
Trump Taps Anti-Trans Lawyer Harmeet Dhillon for Key Civil Rights Post
"Dhillon has focused her career on diminishing civil rights, rather than enforcing or protecting them," argued one critic.
Dec 10, 2024
LGBTQ+ and voting rights defenders were among those who sounded the alarm Tuesday over Republican President-elect Donald Trump's selection of a San Francisco attorney known for fighting against transgender rights and for leading a right-wing lawyers' group that took part in Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election to oversee the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
On Monday, Trump announced his nomination of Harmeet Dhillon to head the key civil rights office, claiming on his Truth Social network that the former California Republican Party vice-chair "has stood up consistently to protect our cherished Civil Liberties, including taking on Big Tech for censoring our Free Speech, representing Christians who were prevented from praying together during COVID, and suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers."
"In her new role at the DOJ, Harmeet will be a tireless defender of our Constitutional Rights, and will enforce our Civil Rights and Election Laws FAIRLY and FIRMLY," Trump added.
However, prominent trans activist Erin Reed warned on her Substack that Dhillon's nomination—which requires Senate confirmation—"signals an alarming shift that could make life increasingly difficult for transgender people nationwide, including those who have sought refuge in blue states to escape anti-trans legislation."
Trump has picked Harmeet Dhillon as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. She has stated that it must be "made unsafe" for hospitals to provide trans care, and frequently shares Libs of TikTok posts. She intends to target trans people in blue states. Subscribe to support my journalism.
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— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) December 10, 2024 at 8:14 AM
Reed continued:
Dhillon's most prominent work includes founding the Center for American Liberty, a legal organization that focuses heavily on anti-transgender cases in blue states. The organization's "featured cases" section highlights several lawsuits, such as Chloe Cole's case against Kaiser Permanente; a lawsuit challenging a Colorado school's use of a transgender student's preferred name; a case against a California school district seeking to implement policies that would forcibly out transgender students; and a lawsuit against Vermont for denying a foster care license to a family unwilling to comply with nondiscrimination policies regarding transgender youth.
Reed also highlighted Dhillon's attacks on state laws protecting transgender people, as well as her expression of "extreme anti-trans views" on social media—including calling gender-affirming healthcare for trans children "child abuse."
Last year, The Guardian's Jason Wilson reported that the Center for American Liberty made a six-figure payment to a public relations firm that represented Dhillion in both "her capacity as head of her own for-profit law firm and Republican activist."
Writing for the voting rights platform Democracy Docket, Matt Cohen on Tuesday accused Dhillon of being "one of the leading legal figures working to roll back voting rights across the country."
"In the past few years, Dhillon—or an attorney from her law firm—has been involved in more than a dozen different lawsuits in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. challenging voting rights laws, redistricting, election processes, or Trump's efforts to appear on the ballot in the 2024 election," Cohen noted.
As Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement Tuesday, "The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has the critical responsibility of enforcing our nation's federal civil rights laws and ensuring equal justice under the law on behalf of all of our communities."
"That means investigating police departments that have a pattern of police abuse, protecting the right to vote, and ensuring schools don't discriminate against children based on who they are," Wiley noted. "The nomination of Harmeet Dhillon to lead this critical civil rights office is yet another clear sign that this administration seeks to advance ideological viewpoints over the rights and protections that protect every person in this country."
"Dhillon has focused her career on diminishing civil rights, rather than enforcing or protecting them," she asserted. "Rather than fighting to expand voting access, she has worked to restrict it."
A staunch Trump loyalist, Dhillon has also embraced conspiracy theories including the former president's "Big Lie" that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and has accused Democrats of "conspiring to commit the biggest election interference fraud in world history."
She was co-chair of the Republican National Lawyers Association when it launched Lawyers for Trump, a group that urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene on behalf of the former president after he lost the 2020 election.
Cohen also highlighted Dhillon's ties to right-wing legal activist and Federalist Society co-chair Leonard Leo, described by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) as a "lawless con man and crook" for his refusal to comply with a Senate subpoena and his organization of lavish gifts to conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices.
"We need a leader at the Civil Rights Division who understands that civil rights protections are not partisan or political positions open to the ideological whims of those who seek to elevate a single religion or to protect political allies or particular groups over others," Wiley stressed. "We need a leader who will vigorously enforce our civil rights laws and work to protect the rights of all of our communities—including in voting, education, employment, housing, and public accommodations—without fear or favor."
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As US Election Looms, 3 of 4 Voters Fear Political Violence
"This most recent poll shows that voters want to vote more than ever despite, or perhaps because, our democracy is threatened with the dark cloud of election denial and violence."
Oct 07, 2024
Polling released Monday, less than a month away from the November 5 election, shows that nearly three-quarters of U.S. voters are worried about political violence and believe it is likely because some people will not accept the results.
The latest Civil Rights Monitor Poll, commissioned by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, is based on responses from 1,000 likely voters across the country, who were surveyed September 3-8.
Pollsters found that "81% of voters believe that democracy is under threat, and 73% are worried about political violence after the elections in November," the conference said. "Liberals are much more worried (92%) about political violence than moderates and conservatives (68% and 63%, respectively)."
"We are... elevating Project 2025 as a blueprint to undermine the very values we see supported in three years of polling."
This year's presidential contest is between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump, who during the 2020 cycle repeatedly lied about his loss and even incited some supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol during the certification of the results on January 6, 2021.
Although Trump has tried to disavow the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025, previous polling has shown a majority of Americans believe the ex-president is aligned with its policy blueprint, which was crafted by at least 140 people who worked in the first Trump administration, including six former Cabinet secretaries.
"Project 2025 has become widely known (70% can identify it), and voters are broadly cold towards it (54% rate it 0-49 on a thermometer scale of 0-100)," according to the new poll. "Cuts to overtime pay (91%), cuts to Social Security (86%), and government monitoring of pregnancies (85%) are the components of the Project 2025 agenda that voters oppose the most."
The conference said that "among the most important issues for voters in the elections this year are inflation and the economy (42%, which is up eight points from the previous year), immigration and border security (33%), and protecting our democracy and freedoms (22%)."
Similar to last year, large majorities of respondents agreed that Americans are sacrificing too much of their privacy for Big Tech (86%); diversity makes the country stronger (79%); marriage equality should be protected (77%); the government must do more to protect the civil and human rights of communities of color (69%); abortion access should be a legally protected right (64%); and sexism is a big problem in today's society (63%).
Smaller majorities said that the government should do more to lessen racial inequality in society (59%); artificial intelligence is a threat to jobs (57%); immigrants contribute more to America than they take (57%); America is on the path to another Civil War (55%); and the respondent's heritage, traditions, and cultural identity is under attack (52%).
Additionally, the conference said, "white supremacy is an issue that most voters are worried about, with more than half of respondents (52%) stating they are more worried, including 65% of Black and 64% of Hispanic voters."
The poll also shows that "an astounding 93% of voters are extremely motivated to vote this November, up seven points from last year (86%)."
Maya Wiley, the conference's president and CEO, said in a Monday statement that "voters know what's at stake in this election."
"It's clear that in this presidential year voters want to vote even while they worry about political violence and know democracy is on the ballot," she continued. "This most recent poll shows that voters want to vote more than ever despite, or perhaps because, our democracy is threatened with the dark cloud of election denial and violence. In 2024, voters must know that they will decide the outcome of the election—not a political party, extremist groups, or purveyors of disinformation."
"The civil rights community is organized and actively working on voter education, get-out–the-vote efforts, election protection, and combating disinformation, and we are also elevating Project 2025 as a blueprint to undermine the very values we see supported in three years of polling," she added. "We will continue to combat racism, xenophobia, and efforts to divide us along race and immigration lines. Democracy requires passionate persistence, and our Civil Rights Monitor Poll reassures us that the majority of Americans agree."
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For Our Rights and Our Future, the Senate Must Get To Work on Judicial Confirmations
Focusing on confirming judges will make a tremendous difference in our lives and for our fundamental rights and freedoms.
Sep 13, 2024
President Biden has already accomplished an incredible amount to help create a federal judiciary that works for everyone. From the confirmation of more than 200 qualified and diverse lifetime judges (and counting) to advancing a long-overdue conversation about modernizing and reforming our Supreme Court so that we can one day trust that it provides equal justice for all, we are making important progress. At a time when the extremist majority on our nation’s highest court has rolled back the progress we have made—taking away the fundamental right to abortion, removing a vital tool for eliminating unfair barriers to educational opportunity, weakening voting rights for communities of color, and more—the task of improving a damaged judiciary is daunting.
It’s no surprise that the public’s trust in the judiciary is declining, as reports persist about some Supreme Court justices’ deeply concerning unethical behavior. Our justices should be serving all of us, but some of them are showing that they are only concerned about the interests of the wealthy and powerful. As we live in this reality, we must also do the work to foster a federal judiciary that respects, recognizes, and advances our civil and human rights.
Our justices should be serving all of us, but some of them are showing that they are only concerned about the interests of the wealthy and powerful.
It is incumbent on every generation to protect the progress made and work toward a more inclusive and thriving democracy and society in which everyone is treated with respect and dignity. Unfortunately, in the past few years alone, a manufactured and coordinated campaign has taken us back—but we are not backing down. We are fighting for a better future where our rights, our lives, and our future are respected. For this to happen, our Supreme Court justices must be held to the highest ethical standards, and Congress must explore all options to improve how the Court functions and thus examine its structure, including limiting the amount of time justices can actively serve. In the next few months, there’s also important work that must be done that will make a real difference in our lives. Federal judges decide important cases from who can access health care to whose votes are counted. And for our democracy to endure, we need highly qualified, fair-minded individuals in courtrooms across our nation who will advance equal justice for all.
President Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin have helped to make a significant impact, stewarding more than 200 confirmations of lifetime judges and justices to our federal courts. This includes ushering in the most diverse slate—both demographically and professionally—of federal judges in history. Nearly two-thirds of these confirmed judges are women, nearly two-thirds are people of color, and more than 40 percent have significant experience protecting people’s civil and human rights. Of course, President Biden appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman and first former public defender to serve on our nation’s highest court, and her service to date has been remarkable. A few weeks ago, President Biden also announced his support for long-needed changes to the Supreme Court, including a binding code of conduct for Supreme Court justices.
Transforming our federal judiciary so it not only looks like America but also recognizes and respects the rule of law—and how laws impact people's lives—has been a cornerstone of President Biden’s administration. Together we have changed the default of who is considered fair and qualified for the federal bench because we know that a judiciary staffed with brilliant people committed to equal justice—people whose experiences have been historically excluded—yields better decisions and is more reflective and representative of America. We celebrate this remarkable progress. But we cannot relent.
Time is of the essence. We need laser-like focus to fill every vacancy possible by the end of the year.
The jurists who President Biden has appointed will be serving for decades to come—far outlasting his impressive four years in office. To honor his legacy and to ensure justice is served in more corners of our country, progress must accelerate. Over the next few months, senators must urgently prioritize the confirmation of diverse judges who possess a deep commitment to our civil and human rights.
Now that the Senate has returned, we urge senators to seize every opportunity to make an immediate and lasting difference. The Democratic-led Senate, under the leadership of Majority Leader Schumer, has already confirmed several nominees this week and has now confirmed 209 lifetime nominees during the Biden administration. Dozens more are awaiting action in committee or on the Senate floor. This includes numerous nominees with critical civil and human rights experience, including experience defending religious freedom and protecting the rights of working people and those involved in the criminal-legal system. Time is of the essence. We need laser-like focus to fill every vacancy possible by the end of the year.
For some comparison, President Trump during his one term in office was able to confirm 234 nominees to lifetime judgeships with the avid assistance of then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In the final months of his one term, the Republican-led Senate confirmed 30 judicial nominees, including a Supreme Court justice. We can exceed the previous administration both in numbers and quality—and we must. While we have a long way to go until we have equal justice, it’s imperative that Schumer accelerate this progress and continue to use every moment over the next few weeks and months to fill as many judicial seats as possible. With focus and determination, the Senate can leave President Biden the legacy of appointing a stunning number—more than the last administration—of superbly qualified judicial nominees.
Focusing on confirming judges will make a tremendous difference in our lives and for our fundamental rights and freedoms. We need to take all necessary steps to strengthen our judiciary so that our multiracial democracy can thrive and equal justice prevails.
President Biden’s legacy deserves no less. And our future depends on it.
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