Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s Choice for DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Battled Woke Policies in California

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated San Francisco attorney Harmeet Dhillon to lead the Civil Rights Division of the federal Department of Justice. As NBC News reports, the India-born Dhillon is “also on track to be the first Sikh American to hold the position.” There’s more about Harmeet Dhillon that people should know, and NBC gives the people cause to wonder.

An India-born nominee would be more accurately described as an Indian American, in the style of African American, Mexican American, and so forth. “Sikh” refers to a religion, not a nationality and it’s hard to think of Department of Justice officials described as Catholic Americans, Buddhist Americans, or Hindu Americans.

India-born Harmeet Dhillon is dark-skinned, yet she is not described as a “woman of color” or “person of color.” This description is often invoked for DEI hires, but skin shade has nothing to do with qualifications for a key Department of Justice post.

Dartmouth College graduate Harmeet Dhillon earned her juris doctorate at the University of Virginia, where she was on the board of the Virginia Law Review. Dhillon clerked for Judge Paul V. Niemeyer of the U. S Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Constitutional Torts Section of the Civil Division (D.C.).  Dhillon is also a former member of the board of directors for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, but her critics are not impressed.

“Dhillon has focused her career on diminishing civil rights, rather than enforcing or protecting them,” contends Maya Wiley, president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. That invites a look at Dhillon’s record on civil rights. In 2020, when California Gov. Gavin Newsom shut down the state, Dhillon filed suit against his draconian stay-at-home rules.

“The governor has chosen to limit protests to zero in this state which is outrageous and absurd,” Dhillon told reporters. For small businesses there was “no appeal process, no selection criteria,” and “going to church to worship communally is a First Amendment-protected activity and while it does not sustain the level of protection as protests, petitions, the press, other forms of speech, it is protected under the constitution and we believe it is unconstitutional for the governor to impose restrictions on worship that are broader than necessary to achieve the government’s interests.”

Those unfamiliar with Gov. Newsom’s lockdown should also see California’s rules for gatherings during the pandemic. “All gatherings must be held outside” and “mixing between groups gathering is not allowed.” Masks were mandatory and the six-foot distancing rule enforced “in all directions,” but there was more to it.

“Singing, chanting, shouting, cheering, and similar activities are strongly discouraged in all settings” and singers “should wear a face covering at all times.” Playing of trumpets, clarinets, and such “is strongly discouraged, and if played should use protective or tightly woven cloth barriers on the instrument bells.”

And so on, with Gov. Newsom disregarding his own mask rules at a French Laundry bash with a squad of unmasked lobbyists. As it turned out, the masks were practically useless, and the six-foot distancing rule, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, “just sort of appeared” and was not based on science. As people across the country should know, the lockdown measures were hardly the only violation of civil rights.

In 1996, Californians passed Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), which banned racial and ethnic preferences in state education, employment, and contracting. California’s education establishment fought CCRI from the start and has now established a vast DEI bureaucracy that serves no educational purpose and violates state law.

If confirmed, California attorney Harmeet Dhillon could be the first Justice official to take on government DEI discrimination nationwide. So her nomination could indeed be historic.

READ MORE from Lloyd Billingsley:

Californians Could Seriously Benefit From DOGE in ‘Trump-Proofed’ California

The Golden State Unleashes the Anonymous Snoop Dogs

University of California at Planned Parenthood

Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.

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