Donald Trump’s pick to lead the civil rights division at the Department of Justice built a national profile as the ultimate San Francisco contrarian — representing conservative college students at UC Berkeley, a Google engineer fired for opposing diversity efforts and churches forced to close during the pandemic.
Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney and Republican Party official who lives in San Francisco, has for years played a central role in culture-war legal battles over diversity, free speech and Covid closures in California and nationally. She’s also been a fierce Trump loyalist from the start.
Her ideology and track record of taking on splashy conservative causes in the Golden State likely signal a fundamental shift in the DOJ’s approach to civil rights, upending conventional ideas about whose rights the division is focused on protecting….
Longtime allies said Dhillon, if she’s confirmed by the Senate, is likely to use the division’s powers to target universities for alleged discrimination against Jewish or white students, challenge social media companies that censor conservative speech, and ensure left-leaning groups are prosecuted in cases of political violence.