After shedding most employees, DOJ looks to shift around Civil Rights staff to fill ‘deep need’

Updated Aug. 2 at 10:19 a.m.

The Justice Department is soliciting staff within its Civil Rights Division to take reassignments to fill vacancies in areas related to education, employment and voting, with leaders citing the “deep need” created by significant vacancies. 

The requests come as the division has shed hundreds of employees—or more than 60% of its workforce—since January and the Trump administration has assigned attorneys to tackle new priorities. The department is now scrambling to fill vacancies it has incentivized employees to leave through the extended paid leave program known as “deferred resignations,” early retirement and other offers. 

Most sections within the Civil Rights Division, known as CRT, sent the solicitations out to employees, according to staff familiar with them and an email obtained by Government Executive, which asked for permanent transfers rather than temporary details. Employees would move to the Educational Opportunities Section, Employment Litigation Section or Voting Section, offices designed to protect civil rights in each of those areas. 

Some of the offices that received the request are themselves already severely understaffed. Some sections from which Justice is soliciting staff have already lost upwards of 75% of their attorneys since January, according to an employee familiar with the changes. The three sections set to be on the receiving end of the transfers are currently managing even more drastic shortages, the employee said. 

CRT has undergone a significant transformation since President Trump’s nominee to lead the office, Harmeet Dhillon, took the reins. She rewrote the mission statements for each of CRT’s sections, creating new priorities focused on antisemitism on college campuses, restricting opportunities for transgender individuals and other areas.

Education, employment and voting were the three sections most directly impacted by the priority shifts, one employee said. Dhillon and other Justice leaders have stood up working groups to take on those new priorities, which has further drawn from the division’s workforce.

In May, for example, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche created the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative to investigate any recipient of federal funds that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion, allows antisemtism—which the administration has increasingly defined as college campuses that enable protests against the Israeli government—supports transgender women playing women’s sports or other perceived violations of administration policy. 

CRT in April reassigned the top officials in multiple sections, including voting, to offices such as those in charge of the Freedom of Information Act and complaint adjudication. Reuters previously reported about a dozen top officials were transferred in total. 

Under its new mission statement, the voting section is now focused on ensuring accurate voter databases and eliminating fraud. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said in a report he issued last week on the changes taking place at CRT that the section has gone “from protecting voting rights to restricting voting access.” The employment section has recently shifted away from pursuing cases in which organizations allegedly engaged in race-based pay discrimination. 

Employees who agree to the transfers will have to “expeditiously” wrap up their existing work before making the move. Supervisors were not yet clear if there was a specific number the department was targeting, but said involuntary reassignments could occur. 

Justice did not respond to a request for comment on the transfer requests. 

Justice is now the latest agency in the Trump administration to ask employees to move around to fill vacancies it spurred. Around 4,500 department employees have accepted deferred resignation offers, according to Justice’s budget documents. The Agriculture Department, which shed more than 15,000 employees, last month asked employees to transfer into “critical” vacancies as it threatened more cuts. The National Weather Service previously offered employees opportunities to transfer to fill key roles that had been left unoccupied. And an Internal Revenue Service employee told Government Executive on Friday his leadership recently suggested they will soon begin “helicoptering” staff to other areas of need. 

The 1957 Civil Rights Act stood up CRT to enforce laws that prohibit various forms of discrimination. Welch, in his report, said the division has always shifted priorities from one administration to the next, but consistently maintained a similar overall objective. 

Now, he said, “rather than prioritizing the enforcement of federal civil rights laws, career attorneys have been explicitly directed to faithfully and zealously dedicate their efforts to the ‘priorities and objectives of the president,’” Welch said. Of the staffing cuts, he added, “There is no precedent, in the history of the Civil Rights Division, for dismantling the division on this scale.” 

The transfers within CRT, Welch told Government Executive, is "more proof of the administration’s intent to undermine the division’s work.”

This story has been updated with additional comment.